Is leaving your job the answer or is it about finding your passion first?

Posted on April 26, 2017 by Shawn Pettis, One of Thousands of Leadership Coaches on Noomii.

Fifteen years ago, you would never of made that mistake. You would have achieved, before that mistake would ever have happened. Your energy, excitement and drive would have motivated you to achieve remarkable things. A few years ago, you would never have confronted your co-workers like that. You would have been the good leader, open, listening and able to expertly work with others to solve these problems. You were looked up to. Now you gaze at your feet, shoulders slumped. You are not like that all the time, but often enough now to notice it. Your energy is getting lower, getting out of bed to go to work gets a little harder. You work harder on things that should be easier. You start to like people less and doubt yourself more. You even take this home with you and think on it often, many times creating conflict at home with those who you truly love. Daily you wonder if it is time to leave, however fear what would you do. You read an article about being a better leader and about 10 signs you should leave your job. You think you fit into all these categories they show, you should be a better leader, you should leave your job. But then you feel you do not want to leave your job, you fear what would it be like out there. You doubt your ability to learn now.

First, why is the first reaction to leave your job? Why for some that feel frustrated at work is it to do more and get more, or just leave completely? Reason is because you do not know what you want anymore. It happens. Life has changed for you over time. You have experienced so much and grown to develop more your own ways of how you perceive the world. However, all the learning you have gathered through your life, be it from your parents, family, friends and work mentors is now most likely really starting to conflict with you. You need to now rediscover what is in you, where you want to go. There probably is nothing wrong with what you have learned, however you are telling yourself it is time to live life the way you want. This could be the time to change careers or just change your focus at work. If you work in a truly poisoned environment, then this is also showing you that you have had enough of dealing with this type of work. Getting to understand what is important to you in your life, why you want it to be important to you and then converting your life to achieve it, is what you are saying to yourself.

So, what do you do about it. Well stop making assumptions and irrational decisions. Your negative patterns are signs your brain is saying it is confused and does not know where to turn. I would say work with a coach to help discover your direction, however like most people your first instinct is to go alone. At least that is what I did (If you want to know the results and costs for me, well let’s say it took some serious time and money). So, if you are trying alone, first you need to look into yourself. Write down what is important to you. Try to figure out what you truly want to do. I will give you a hint, if you smile it is probably good, if you put it down and feel like you want to puke thinking about it because it gets you angry or upset, probably not so good. Discover what makes you passionate (yes that word, passion, it is a good one that provides energy). Then if you have been able to figure out some of that, you need to devise your plan. What are the things you need to do to build this new way? What capabilities do you need to achieve and prevent failure? What are the things you need to do? It could be leave your job or maybe it was seeing what is more important and realizing what your job really means to you. That is in you, everyone and every job brings different results.

So, once you have decided, once you have devised your plan, go try it. Sorry if I had the full steps written out that would provide absolute success, you would be reading about it in my 1 billion copies sold book. Plus, I am giving you an idea of the beginnings to achieve. Truthfully the answer is not that easy for someone to find. It is challenging work, because you have to take your all that great learning and living you have been doing, figure out how it has been directing you and then actively realign your life to meet your new desires that work for you. I will not take a life time to figure this out. It will take less time to figure out what you want and more time building the capabilities to actually achieve it. The variables are plentiful so it is important that you discover them properly. I am not saying you cannot do it, I believe you can. I also will say finding out what you really want in your life and at work will bring such great rewards. It will help you focus on what skills you need to work on, where you spend your time and possibly even what career you really want to do. I suggest you try it, because if you do not, your suffering will never end no matter where you go.

Bask in the Sun Coaching INC. www.baskinthesun.ca