So Now What?

I was having coffee with a friend yesterday who faces a dilemma that many of us have been in.  She’s a smart, successful, mid-career exec who has gotten herself promoted into a job that she always wanted.  And she kinda hates it (I’m paraphrasing). She’s done what I and many others have done before.  Sometimes (as career women), we are so hell-bent on getting ahead, earning the next promotion, or taking on the biggest challenge in the company — dare I say leaning in — that we never stop to ask whether that’s really what we want to be doing.

My moment of came when I was promoted to manage network operations at a telecom company – big problems with VoIP, huge team, lots of prestige.  Of course, I took the promotion without really even thinking.  I hate to admit it but my ego got the best of me. And to be fair, I did a decent job but I really hated it.  I hated the problems, I wasn’t that interested in the solutions, and except for good leadership development, the role didn’t draw on any of my inherent strengths or tap into anything I was passionate about.

So what happens when you get “there”, and there’s no “there” there.

Talking with my friends, I’m realizing this is much more common than I thought. We need to make a living, get the kids through college, or save for retirement. We are trained to keep pushing to bigger or better things or, at the very least, to hold on to what job we have no matter what.  I’m starting to think we pay a bigger psychic price for that than anyone is calculating.  It’s draining the life out of our lives and at some point, I had to ask whether it was really worth it.

But more practically, what can you do?  Look at the job functions that utterly deplete you, and try to offload them to someone else.  Chances are there may be part of another’s job he/she would be gratefully swap.  Also, try limiting the time you spend on soul-sucking tasks or slot them into a certain day of the week only.  Do more that you enjoy, less that you dread.  If none of those work, I’m going to suggest the big one.  Maybe jump off the high dive and spend some time on the edge of the pool figuring out what you want. It feels risky but is it any more dangerous than squandering your life doing something you can barely stand?

It’s scary but I’ve done it.  Several times.  And lived to tell the tale.