How to Decide Whether to Stay or Pivot in Your Career
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How to Decide Whether to Stay or Pivot in Your Career
Hey, it's Kate. Welcome back to Blueprints to Becoming. So great to have you here. Today we're talking about the decision to keep going down the path that you are on or pivot and try something completely new.
As you know, I am a career pivot coach. I help media and tech pros find a new direction, and this podcast is here to help you navigate that choice for yourself, give you some tools that are gonna help equip you to do that, and challenge any assumptions that you have about what is possible for you.
The false choice: stay or go
So deciding to stay or go, first and foremost, that is a false choice. And by that I mean that is a binary decision. Staying or going. And as we know, we don't make great choices when we're only choosing from two options. So the first thing to acknowledge is there are more than two options. There are more than two ways of thinking about where you are at.
Binaries are shit
I love to talk about binaries. I'm sure there are so many episodes on this show where I talk about how shit binaries are, and I invite you to listen to them. I can link them in the show notes.
But the reason I have it in for a binary: our brains love the comfort of "it is A or B." So much of our world is built around binary thinking. Things are good or bad. They are right or wrong. Black and white. Male, female. It's not true that the world can be divvied up into A and B. There is so much more fluidity. There is so much more in the middle.
When we are young, we live in that black-and-white world. And part of becoming fully functional adults moving through society is embracing all of the shades of grey in the middle.
Why it feels so stressful
When you're thinking about your career, and you're picturing your options as:
I keep doing this and my life stays the same
I sack all of this in and I do something completely different
...and those are the only things that you can perceive, I can see how stressful it is to navigate that. Because what you are asking of yourself is:
Be unhappy
Or bin off everything you have ever known, every comfort, everything that is real and solid, for an imagined future that is based on nothing but thoughts and fancy, maybe the lived experience of other people that you are consuming on the internet.
But there is no concrete reality there for you as you consider the thing that you are gonna dive into. You might not even know what that other thing might be. It's just this big nebulous question mark that maybe is better than this, because surely anything is better than this.
It's very difficult to choose to do anything different when the options are:
Do nothing
Or do something so high-risk you can't even conceive of what your reality would be if you were to make that choice
The weight of past investment
It is also hard to decide, not just because of the binary of it all, but because you might have put so much of yourself into the path that you are on.
That might be:
Your money (specialized education, specific training)
The time and effort you’ve put in
The greatest investment of all: your spirit, essence, identity
The more we invest of ourselves into a path, the more we feel linked to it — as in "I am this. I am fundamentally linked to this work."
And it's so hard to extricate ourselves from that, because we've put so much into it. So much time. So much money. So much effort. So much of ourselves. How could we leave that? Surely that would make us out to be such a failure. And how would we ever recoup those losses?
Nothing is lost. I promise you. Nothing is lost.
All of that experience, all of that investment — it is part of you. It is part of your building blocks. It is inside of you. All those skills, all that experience — it is going to lead to the rich next version of you as you get on the path to thriving. Nothing is lost. Nothing is wasted.
You were making the best decisions that you could at the time, with the information that you had, with the experience that you had, and with the skills that you had. Those were the best choices you could make then. You are allowed to make a different choice now.
What would you need to change to be happy?
The first question I have for you: what would you need to change to be happy where you are now?
What would need to be different for you to be happy?
Or to feel content?
Or fulfilled with what you have right now?
This is a slight variation on the deciding-to-stay angle because yes, it's saying I will stay on this path. But it's saying:
I don't accept the things that are no longer working for me on this path
I believe things can be different
I believe I can get more out of this
That could mean:
I can have more peace
I can have more ___ (whatever your more might be)
Or it could be less — I want less stress, I want to work fewer hours
The grass isn’t always greener
It’s easy to look over and be like, wow, if only I was over there, everything would be dreamy. What I’ve learned in my experience of pivoting and my very winding career is:
Every job I've ever had, every industry I've worked in — from highbrow hospitality and events, to film and TV, to corporate tech — every version of work I’ve done has had:
Something great going for it
Challenges of its own
What I have learned is not to ask, "Is the benefit of being over there better than what I’m getting here?" but instead:
Can I rise to or tolerate the challenges and difficulties of that different job/industry?
The hard things here suit me better.
Tools to explore more than two options
1. Odyssey Planning
This is from Design Your Life.
Write 3 different versions of what the next 5 years could look like:
Option 1: Staying where you are
Option 2: A different avenue
Option 3: Another, as different as possible
Explore:
What your day-to-day would be like
What achievements you might make
What the challenges might be
If we work together, I will ask you to do this. And the benefit of doing it together is that we’ll actually unpack it — and you’ll actually do it.
2. The 15 Things exercise
This is one of my favourites. Sit down and write 15 different things you could do.
And do not stop yourself with what is practical. Divorce yourself from the idea of being practical and sensible. This is just about what is possible.
Example: I could say, “I’m going to be a bus driver.” Of course that’s possible. I might not want to do it. But it’s an option, right?
Bonus points if you get to 20.
When it’s really time to go
Think about your values and your strengths. Are they, at a fundamental level, being met by your current work?
If you have a value for sustainability, and you’re working in an industry that is built on burnout — maybe it’s time to go.
If you value security (say, financial security), but there’s no clear path in your current role to earn more — maybe it’s time to go.
For me, I value my autonomy. I value independence so deeply. And it was very difficult for me to feel that being met in the way that is unique to me when I was employed. It was a constant level of discomfort. This constant subliminal clashing.
Final thoughts
I want you to walk away thinking about this decision beyond the binary.
It’s not just: Should I stay or should I go?
It’s: What could tempt me to stay?
What could make this situation work for me?
And if it is about going, then broaden the frame of reference of what it would mean to go. What that could be like. Start to create some clarity around your options.
I hope this has been useful. A little bit of a longer episode today, but there's just so much to talk about. What can I say?
If this episode has resonated, don't forget to leave me a review. If you're on Apple Podcasts, I would just appreciate that so much. You can also give a star rating if you're on Spotify. Follow and subscribe. It does the podcast so much good, and it helps me to know that it's useful, we're on the right track.
And I will see you next week. We're going to be diving into how to have more respect for your time.
Okay. I'll leave you there. I hope you have a wonderful week.
Bye for now!
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