I wrote last week about signs that it’s time to quit your job. However, I strongly believe and encourage my clients to get clean about their job before leaving, if possible. What do I mean by clean? Cleaning up your thoughts, taking responsibility for your part of the relationship, and making peace with it all.
[Caveat: I’m talking in generalizations. Obviously, there are some instances and environments when you need to get out NOW. Take care of yourself and do what is best for you.]
1. Cleaning up your thoughts
I believe our thoughts have incredible power. They also influence our feelings, so if you are feeling something you don’t enjoy (like sadness, frustration, fear or anger), examining your thoughts is critical to help you identify WHY you are feeling that emotion. By identifying your thoughts about the job you want to leave and examining them to understand the story you are telling yourself about the circumstance, you can more objectively make decisions that are based on what’s best for you, and not just making choices because of the story your brain is concocting.
When I work with my clients, I help them identify the thoughts that are causing them pain. There are several resources that can help you with your thoughts; one of my favorites is Byron Katie.
2. Taking responsibility
Another lesson from Byron Katie is the concept of business, as in, “Who’s business are you in?” Katie classifies three kinds of business: your business, other people’s business, and God’s business. Your business includes how you think and feel about things. Other people’s business is how they think and feel, including how they think and feel about you. You have no control over that, which you may know if you’ve ever had an experience where you did everything “right” and they still didn’t like you. Finally, God’s business encompasses natural disasters, weather and other big things we have no control over.
When you stay focused on your business, life gets a lot more simple. By taking responsibility for how you feel, you take back your power and also let others off the hook of making you happy.
3. Making peace
Peace is two-fold: it’s best to leave a job in a professional manner (think about the Golden Rule), and keep your mind focused on the positive. That may sound counter-intuitive…after all, you’re leaving the job. But by focusing on the positive – what you learned (either skills, or learned about yourself), the people you connected with, the experience you gained – helps your brain continue to look for what’s positive in your life. Our brains are naturally wired to look for the negative, to keep us out of danger, so shifting your brain to focus on the positive takes diligence and practice. It has immense benefits, as I recently wrote about. Recognize that this job, for the length of time you were in it, played some role for you. If nothing else, it helped you get to the place where you are now.
Leaving a job cleanly not only makes for a smoother transition for you and the company, it also puts you in a better position to begin something new without dragging the old habits, negative thoughts and patterns with you.