I see you… Your dream job is now a nightmare, and you’re looking for the fastest, cleanest exit that won’t leave too much scorched earth behind you. Your resignation letter is half-written or maybe already saved as a draft in your personal email account yearning to land in your bosses inbox. It’s time, maybe even overdue, from your perspective. You just want to quit.
Dude, I get it. I once gave my notice and it was actually the wrong thing to do. I can tell you that a few of my clients feel like their in your same situation as I write this.
Here’s A Common Theme
There’s a theme I’m seeing, and as we all know, people leave patterns. Many leaders, including my clients who have half-written resignation letters, are thinking about quitting because of one factor: overwhelm.
How much would your perspective change if you had your schedule (and load of responsibilities) at a far more manageable level? A jam-packed schedule with a rising pile of to-dos and a team to manage is enough to make any sane person say, “I’m just done! I don’t want to do it anymore. I just want to quit.”
I’ve been there. I vividly recall when I was overwhelmed, saw no way out, found a new job, and gave my notice. A significant factor in making that mistake in that situation is because I was so overwhelmed. It was all I could do to keep my head above water with my direct reports, my schedule, my responsibilities, meetings, calls, email, so much *beeping* email! I wish with everything in me that before I resigned that I had taken the time to open my eyes to other options. I hate to admit it, but the truth is I let overwhelm and frustration blind my perspective. It took a honest conversation during my verbal resignation for me to see the options in front of me at the current employer. I was a lucky one – we had trust and honesty in the conversation which turned my resignation into a “stay conversation”. I landed a new job inside and stayed with the company another 10 years.
Now, I want to be clear – if your current situation is awful, especially if anything abusive, controlling, or of course, illegal is happening – get out now! It’s your life. If your current situation isn’t awful and unbearable, before you resign you may want to consider these simple, practical steps to making your situation better right now.
Overwhelm and frustration at work skew our perspective. It’s like being super tired and not realizing you snap an answer back in a not so pleasant tone when your kids/spouse/neighbor/friend/stranger at Starbucks repeat a question. People around you feel it faster than you may – at least that was true for me. We often don’t recognize our reality all the time when our perspective is affected.
For me, I got tunnel vision and in that myopic mode of “The only way to fix this is to just get out,” I started creating different beliefs that hijacked my momentum, happiness, and leadership impact.
You don’t have to resign right now. You still have options and the opportunity to make your dream job be the job you wished it was from the very beginning. Before the lyrics of Should I Stay or Should I Go become your new theme song, let’s look at what not resigning could mean for your leadership impact.
Remember Your Why
So, what’s the best way to gain a great perspective when you’re overwhelmed? The best tactic I found that can have a big impact super quick is to pause and remember. Just pause, take a breath, and be in the moment. When you’re feeling overwhelmed by text alerts, emails, voice messages, people wanting your time, everything just piling up… pause. Almost everything can wait 10 minutes. You will see that the world still moves on even when we’re intentionally pausing.
Now, close your eyes and remember what inspired you to say “Yes!” to this job in the first place. There was a vision in your mind when you jumped for joy at this job offer. You already envisioned your new office, your update on LinkedIn, business cards with that dream job title under your name. Sure, some of it was ideal, but dude, let’s be honest: you saw incredible potential in this opportunity.
How far off are you now from the vision you first had in your mind about this job? What did you see yourself saying “Yes!” to in your vision and how far off are you from making that vision your reality right now? What are some steps you can identify to close the gap from your vision for your job and your current reality? Between my own experience and my clients going through this same situation, the gap between their vision and their current reality is not as wide as they feel it is.
Sometimes, a few small ‘course corrections’ can make a world of difference. Maybe you’re working on the wrong projects. Maybe your initial team is ballooned out of proportion and you feel like a full-time babysitter instead of a dynamic leader. Maybe your schedule has drifted into a lousy cocktail of obligations, unnecessary meetings, and the ‘tyranny of the urgent’. It’s likely a big part of your frustration is that you’re interacting with the wrong people. Yuck – no wonder you want to quit!
Create the Space You Crave
The greatest opportunity in your role right now is to create space for your greatness to shine. There’s a reason why you’re in that corner office or overseeing your team: the leaders above you saw the capability, skills, and potential you could bring to this opportunity. Burying your potential in meetings that add no value, responding to emails at all hours of the day, poor management structure, and workload overwhelm is the fast track to burnout. How would I know? This was my exact problem – guilty as charged!
Now’s your chance to take control of your life, your thoughts, your expectations, your interactions, and your choices. It’s within your power to change your reality. You may be surprised at how much you actually control right now that you can change today to make your day better. I double-dog dare you to come up with one thing you can stop or start doing in the next hour or next 24 hours that will get you through the week better.
That one change can carry you to the weekend where you can pause longer, think more about what truly matters and what you want life to look like, how you want to feel at work and in your life, and then, you can take action for your long-term happiness.
3 Things To Do This Over the Weekend
1. Pause.
It starts with pausing, taking a breath, and getting clear about why you said “Yes!” to this opportunity in the first place. If the context was worse than you realized before you started, then it’s up to you to not stay hoodwinked forever. Get out! If the context changed after you started, what changed and what’s within your power to change back or create a new context for your success?
2. Be proactive.
Another tip I’ve found when buried in overwhelm and frustration, resignation letter in hand, is to be proactive. Instead of writing your letter, write out what’s weighing you down, what’s depressing your spirit, and what do you wish you never had to do again. Whether you share the list with anyone but yourself (and your dog), that’s another matter. The key is you’re articulating the exact contributors to your overwhelm and frustration. Something has pushed you to this breaking point – what is it, and who is responsible, and what can you do about it?
3. Take inventory.
Writing your resignation letter means you’re truly resigning to the belief that your current situation is impossible to change. I don’t believe that’s true, and based on what I know, I don’t think you truly believe your situation is impossible to change. It may be that you simply have no idea how to do it.
Where does that leave us? At a crossroads: take the passive way out with resigning, or take the proactive approach and create a new strategy. Who do you need to talk to about your situation? Who’s contributing to your overwhelm and frustration? Depending on who is on your list, they may not realize they’re contributing to this level of overwhelm and frustration. Your boss may be unaware of exactly how you’re feeling. How would they know if you never told them?
Pausing, taking a breath, taking inventory, and creating a proactive strategy can help you gain a fresh perspective on your current situation. You deserve to create an incredible life, do work you love, and have the impact I know you want to have. If you’re overwhelmed with your job and don’t know who to turn to, send me a message so we can chat more. Again, I’ve been where you are right now, and it’s a miserable place to not know what to do next.
What if you’re not ready to talk right now? That’s okay – can I give you a gift anyway? No strings attached, no pressure, just a gift that I created to help overwhelmed executives like you know what options you have right now.
I call it the Career Satisfaction Assessment, and yes, in case the name didn’t give it away, this is designed to help you gauge how happy you are with your current career. It helps you get super clear on where you’re stuck and shows you the gaps of where you are today compared to where you want to be.
It takes 15-20 minutes to go through the assessment, and when you’re done, there’s a link to schedule a complimentary Career Intervention Call with me. We’ll hop on a call, talk about your assessment, the gaps you see in your career right now, and put together a few tangible, actionable steps to move you toward where you want to be. (click the image above to access the assessment)
You don’t have to resign right now. You still have options and the opportunity to make your dream job be the job you wished it was from the very beginning.
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