2 cents
Day Four:
"Whether you asked for it – or not – what good advice did you get this year? Did it come from an unexpected source? Was it unsolicited, or did you need a word or two after an eventful day, week, or month? Has the advice changed the way you think about the world? Changed the way you think about your advisor? Changed the way you think about yourself? Changed the way you act? Can you distill the message and help the rest of us out, or is it too personal to be universal?"
I'm going to try to keep this one short tonight, because I'm tired and tomorrow night we're going to Cincinnati for a Christmas party. But this was the first time this week where I read the prompt and immediately knew what I would write about.
I recently made the decision to leave my job, a decision that wasn't easy and which wasn't without some heartbreak. I'd been contemplating it for months and couldn't get myself to the point where I was willing to let go. But then I had lunch with a consultant I'd worked with earlier in the year, a woman who I admired not only for the work she'd done for us, but for the way she'd acted as a sort of mentor for me during the project. She'd given me advice, yes, but what meant more to me was that she made me feel like I knew what I was talking about. In a world where everyone else was saying we didn't have any branding experience, she said to me, "Haley, you should trust your gut. You know exactly what you're doing."
I didn't mean to talk about my unhappiness -- I was meaning to ask her about measuring brand equity -- but when she asked me point blank, "And what about you? Are you happy where you are?" it just kind of poured out of me. Anxiety, uncertainty, indecision...and in the middle of that, she stopped me and said,
"When you get to the point where your job is taking energy away from you instead of giving you energy, then it's time to leave."
At those words I thought about how it had been getting harder to go to work each morning, and how sometimes I dreaded opening my email when I was at home. I used to love going to work, and I used to check my email at home, and work at home, not because I felt I had to, but because I was excited about what I was doing and wanted to work on it. It gave me energy. I still loved my team and the people I worked with, and there were still days where I really loved what I was doing, but overall, I wasn't getting energy from my job anymore. It wasn't anybody's fault, but it was time for something else.
We talked a little more about it, about how when you get to the point where you don't feel like you can put the same passion into what you're doing it's not good for you or for the company you're working for. And when I left the restaurant, I felt like something had shifted inside me, and it wasn't going to go back to the way it was before.
It's funny how you can know something in your head but it takes someone else saying it to make you know it in your heart. I think maybe I needed an impartial third party to tell me what I already knew.
"Whether you asked for it – or not – what good advice did you get this year? Did it come from an unexpected source? Was it unsolicited, or did you need a word or two after an eventful day, week, or month? Has the advice changed the way you think about the world? Changed the way you think about your advisor? Changed the way you think about yourself? Changed the way you act? Can you distill the message and help the rest of us out, or is it too personal to be universal?"
I'm going to try to keep this one short tonight, because I'm tired and tomorrow night we're going to Cincinnati for a Christmas party. But this was the first time this week where I read the prompt and immediately knew what I would write about.
I recently made the decision to leave my job, a decision that wasn't easy and which wasn't without some heartbreak. I'd been contemplating it for months and couldn't get myself to the point where I was willing to let go. But then I had lunch with a consultant I'd worked with earlier in the year, a woman who I admired not only for the work she'd done for us, but for the way she'd acted as a sort of mentor for me during the project. She'd given me advice, yes, but what meant more to me was that she made me feel like I knew what I was talking about. In a world where everyone else was saying we didn't have any branding experience, she said to me, "Haley, you should trust your gut. You know exactly what you're doing."
I didn't mean to talk about my unhappiness -- I was meaning to ask her about measuring brand equity -- but when she asked me point blank, "And what about you? Are you happy where you are?" it just kind of poured out of me. Anxiety, uncertainty, indecision...and in the middle of that, she stopped me and said,
"When you get to the point where your job is taking energy away from you instead of giving you energy, then it's time to leave."
At those words I thought about how it had been getting harder to go to work each morning, and how sometimes I dreaded opening my email when I was at home. I used to love going to work, and I used to check my email at home, and work at home, not because I felt I had to, but because I was excited about what I was doing and wanted to work on it. It gave me energy. I still loved my team and the people I worked with, and there were still days where I really loved what I was doing, but overall, I wasn't getting energy from my job anymore. It wasn't anybody's fault, but it was time for something else.
We talked a little more about it, about how when you get to the point where you don't feel like you can put the same passion into what you're doing it's not good for you or for the company you're working for. And when I left the restaurant, I felt like something had shifted inside me, and it wasn't going to go back to the way it was before.
It's funny how you can know something in your head but it takes someone else saying it to make you know it in your heart. I think maybe I needed an impartial third party to tell me what I already knew.