500 Words a Week - Leaving My Job
Recently, I've decided to leave my job. I've had an interest in personal development that has grown over the course of the past few years, and I figure why not dedicate some time towards it and see whether I can make more of a career targeted to this realm. When we think of our life, and we think of making big decisions, there are a few heuristics I like to think about.
Firstly, I think it's helpful to ponder the question of what will we regret more? To me the question I asked myself was will I regret not taking a chance on myself? Will I regret not trying to change my situation so I can spend some more time on something that feels important to me?
I left a well respected job at a wonderful place with wonderful people, one which I never would have believed I would have got a few years ago. This brings up our second heuristic, creating your own definition of success. Success means very different things to many different people, and if you constantly try to live up to others definitions of success you will struggle with finding satisfaction and contentment in the world. By creating our own definition of success, we are creating our own rules for the game. We are allowing ourselves the space and freedom to explore what matters most to us.
Third, asking ourselves upon making big career or life decision, what's the worst that could happen? For me the worst that could happen is realising I made a mistake and I greatly miss the sport S&C industry. It might take some time but I figure I could get a job again somewhere, and I would only be a better person for taking this time to explore an interest. To finding out what really matters.
In "The Defining Decade", Meg Jay discusses the concept of identity capital, our final heuristic. "Identity capital is our collection of personal assets. It is the repertoire of individual resources that we assemble over time". What I like about this concept is it is a useful framework for establishing what we are doing within our life, are we adding to our identity capital or detracting from it? Is it adding a useful story or skill we can talk about in a job interview? Is it improving the content and the structure of our thoughts so we can be a better person? This is a useful heuristic for us to explore when making decisions.
When we talk about making big decisions, people will often context the decision with the statement of time. Time to make mistakes and learn from them. While time is relevant, we should still be aiming to make decisions that add to our identity capital.
“Not knowing what you want to do with your life – or not at least having some ideas about what to do next – is a defence against terror. It is a resistance to admitting that the possibilities are not endless. It is a way of pretending that now doesn’t matter. Being confused about choices is nothing more than hoping that maybe there is a way to get through life without taking charge.” - Meg Jay
We must take charge of our life, we must determine our regrets, we must make our own definition of success.
