Don't be shook before you leap

I received some engaging emails after posting last week’s blog post and I thought we could dig a bit deeper. I’m extremely touched to have this opportunity to support you in your growth each week. To all of you reading; thank you for being here, be it by reading my books, subscribing to my blog, participating in any Empower2gether courses, our quarterly Tea With Titans in Abuja or allowing me to work with you through my coaching programs. I look forward to helping you achieve your highest goals, together.

Is Your Job Working Your Nerves?

Now, some of you may be at a crossroads currently about your job. Perhaps you’re feeling dissatisfied. Perhaps you’ve been contemplating quitting. Well, you’re not alone. Lately, many of my clients have client ‘G’ just sent me this recently:

I’ve been doing this job for the past nine years but I don’t love it. I just make the best of it and I do love the people (most) I work with. I am so sick of my job that I’ve even started telling some people at work about wanting to leave. Part of me wonder, Am I doing this to push myself, so I can get out?

To stay or not to stay? How does one decide when to quit? Today, I share six things to do before you quit your job. These are the same pointers I applied before resigning from my job and reassigning to my passion. Don’t hand in your resignation letter just yet till you read the below points!

1.Think about what you want in your ideal career

Some people quit due to bad bosses, difficult co-workers, or missed promotions. While valid reasons, I urge you to hold your horses first and focus on the big picture. The big picture being, “What is your ideal career? What do you really want to do in an ideal world?”

Because while quitting [due to existing issues] may give you quick relief (especially if you hate your job), this relief isn’t going to last. Soon you’ll face other issues, such as (1) lack of financial security and (2) the question of “What do I do now?”

I’ve seen people quit their jobs without a plan, only to “float” around and not know what to do next. They then get flustered when their cash reserves start depleting. At one point they hop onto a random job to safeguard their job security — only to feel unhappy again after a while. This cycle continues, only to have 5, 10 years pass them by without being closer to what they want (whatever it is).

Your dream job/career comes from knowing what you want first, not by being hasty. Get clarity on your career vision first as this will give you the direction to work toward. Even if you have absolutely no idea what to do, that’s normal — the key is to start thinking. Even if you’re very far away from your ideal career now, knowing what it is will still put you one step ahead.

For example, despite finding my life purpose early on, it took me two years to work out my ideal career based on this purpose. During this time, I focused on working in P&G while thinking how best to pursue my purpose. Subsequently, because I had given due thought to my ideal career, I could act swiftly and boldly when it was time to do so..

Your ideal career can be anything, from a salaried job to starting your business. Here are my two exercises for you:

Purpose/Platform: What messages do you wish to drive in this world? What mediums do you wish to use to drive these messages? Your ideal career should be a perfect mesh of your ideal messages and mediums. Read: How To Tune Into Your ldeal Career: Your Purpose and Your Platform

Mind-Body-Heart-Soul: What are the needs of your mind, body, heart, and soul? These determine your life needs. Your ideal career should perfectly match them. Read: Mission or Money? (Scroll to the middle of the article for the exercise)

(The first exercise is about identifying the “HOW” of your ideal career, while the second is to design your ideal career based on your life needs. Both should ultimately converge to the same answer.)

Say you have difficulty envisioning what you want. I found it easier to identify what I didn’t want to do first, including things I may not have enjoyed about my current/past jobs and things I already knew I didn’t want to do (e.g. perhaps you don’t like accounting and you know you don’t ever want to deal with accounts).

2. Evaluate your current job against your ideal career

With your ideal career formulated, evaluate your current job with these three questions:

· Does this job align with your highest self? Your job should align with your values and beliefs. If it has messages you don’t stand for, like a company that sells tobacco when you are against smoking or a boss who scams people, then it’s clearly not a fit.

· Will this job support you in realizing your ideal career? Even if your current job isn’t your ideal one, if it supports you in realizing your ideal path — be it directly or indirectly — then it has a role to play. Let’s say you want to start your business but you’re in a programming job. Perhaps you are learning useful programming skills that will help you in your business, which will likely be IT-related, next time. So even if your day job has no direct link with your ideal career, it does indirectly support you and hence can be leveraged as such.

· Does this job match your current life priorities? Your job should align with your life priorities. Maybe your priority now is to earn money but your current job pays way below market rate for your skills. Even if it has a nice work environment, it’s clearly not a match because it’s not going to help you accumulate wealth quickly. Or perhaps one of your life priorities is family but your job has terrible work-life balance. If so, this is clearly not a fit either.

In an ideal world, your job should give a “yes” for all three questions. If not, you should take active steps to work towards your ideal path. If your current job gives a “no” for two or more questions, you should most definitely look into quitting soon as it’s clearly a bad fit.

For me, I started to feel my position at my last organization wasn’t a fit with my highest self. My life purpose is to help others achieve their highest consciousness, yet I felt the non- profit fundraising development, which supports a phenomenal mission to fight poverty, was part of a larger system that stifled wealth equity for people of color and created silos for disjointed services. Of course, one could argue that my work provided the engine to help people improve people’s lives yet getting those millions in and fighting to convince others nonprofits need operations support as well as programming support just isn’t my ideal way of helping others.

Still, I admired the work that IMPACT was doing and opportunities it provided the community and myself — it was an excellent platform to develop myself. Like a little bird learning to fly, I had to build my skills first to pursue my purpose. So even though the position was no longer in direct service aligned with my ideal path, it indirectly supported me in my ideal path by giving me the outlet to grow. I was in non-profit, so the pay was moderate, and with budgeting, it served my family goals and another of my then-priorities to save money. I figured this would be important for a rainy day.

As the pandemic loomed and I had some hard life challenges, I reflected that in supporting the organization to raise tens of millions of dollars, I had already achieved my initial objectives to grow as a nonprofit leader, the position no longer enabled me in my path. Like a bird that had strengthened its wings, I was ready to quit to pursue my passion.

3.Have a plan

Over the years, I’ve seen coaches and trainers glorify how they left their “being Just Over Broke JOB” to “live the free life” that gives them “5-figure dollar monthly / 6-figure dollar annual income” while “working only X hours/week” (and then proceed to promote their XYZ course on how to achieve this). This, is not that and I am not encouraging anyone to recklessly quit their jobs, thinking they can just start a business and earn lots of money just like that — which obviously isn’t true. You should NOT expect magic dust and easy fixes in your career transition journey, especially if what you’re switching to a very different field.

My decision to resign and reassign my passion was very deliberate and came with long time self reflection, planning (some pushing) and confirmation of discernment that took time:

After four years of working (and while still in the company), I began to explore various ways to pursue my passion, often volunteering to do personal development training, curriculum writing and strategic planning sessions for other NGOs. I eventually realized that to realize my purpose and remain in an ethical non-conflict of interest space, I needed to start my own business.

I continued to focus on growing and excelling in my job. I also constantly thought about my ultimate vision for my passion, such as when I was out on business trips and building a client base.

When I was ready to resign. I spoke with my team, worked out a proper plan, set targets and deadlines, and worked on client successes that I could later use as testimonials.

As I tell my course participants, success [in any business] comes from grit, hard work, strategy, and action. If you think you can just quit your job, “wing it” (in whatever you want to do), and then see massive results, you’re wrong. You need a plan, a plan that — at least — answers the following:

· What is your ideal vision? What are your specific targets?

· What is your plan to get there?

· What are your specific action steps?

· What is your timeline for these steps?

· What if things don’t work out? What is your contingency plan? (See point #5 on contingency plan below.)

4.Build your bridge

There are two ways to realize your ideal career. One is to quit your job right away and then work towards your ideal career from scratch. The other is to transit by building a “bridge” to link you from where you are currently to your ideal career, and then quit when you are ready.

For me, I resigned and did a combination of both. That’s because (1) I had established myself as a leader in the nonprofit space, I was clear on my personal mission statement, so it didn’t matter whether I saw initial results or not — I was going to make it happen, and (2) My previous job had very long hours and heavy workload. Since I was working late hours, I had little time/energy for my passion. The best way to move forward was really to quit and devote myself to my new path.

While I did put in work to create a bridge with connections from my day job, I do not recommend that you just quit unless you’ve a clear idea of what to do and an extremely clear plan of action. Quitting a job will create a host of other variables, namely loss of a financial source and opening an employment gap, which may create other problems if you’re not prepared for them. Rather, I recommend building a path (your bridge) that transits you from where you are now to your end goal, and then quit when you’re ready. For example:

If you want a job with better pay / work-life balance / opportunities, secure such a job before quitting. Job search isn’t an overnight affair; it can take several months (or more) to get a good job.

If you want to start your business, do your due diligence first. Research, network, create a plan, set your targets, build your skills, get initial clients, and if possible, get some income flowing in. This way, you can immediately step up your earnings once you switch to full time. This was what happened to my client from last year, who recently quit her job to pursue her passion. Before that, she focused on setting up her website, starting her training certification, gaining initial followers, and getting initial clients. As she has laid out her business foundation and already saw initial results, quitting means she can now create more results (more clients, more income) with her efforts, as opposed to dealing with the unpredictability of starting something new.

If you want to make a switch in career path, identify the gap between your current point and end point. For example, perhaps you need to acquire (fill in the blank) skills, gain some experience, or even go for further studies first. Then, work on these factors.

You know you are ready to quit when the opportunity cost of staying on in your job is higher than quitting (i.e. you’ve more to lose by staying on). That’s when it’s time to make the move.

5. Have a contingency plan

Some say you should burn all bridges with your past so that you would dash forward in your new goal. They say you shouldn’t have a plan B so you would fully focus on making your new goal work out.

I should be the last to speak about jumping without a net, but I see the value. Having a contingency plan is necessary because there is always a chance that things won’t work out. Have you ever heard; if you want to make God laugh, tell him YOUR plans? The intent here isn’t to be pessimistic, but to ensure that all your bases are covered and there is nothing that’ll stop you from achieving your vision.

Although when I was considering a pivot and was knee deep in some family medical debt which I had taken responsibility for. I had discussed a contingency plan with my sons and had a savings I could tap into with a penalty for early withdraw. I tightened up my business plan- and then God stepped in. Showing up on LinkedIn as available for opportunities allowed some folks to pursue me and my skill set, which was more aligned on a path I wanted to pursue. It was contract work, so I still have the freedom to build my dreams as well.

Interestingly, while creating my plan, I leaned into my faith and stopped feeling fearful about “what if’s.” As opposed to wondering What if I fail?, I was able to fully concentrate on my path ahead. Because I had already anticipated the worst-case scenario and planned for it, I knew there was nothing to be afraid of. This lack of fear arguably helped me pursue my passion without reservations and achieve my best results in my given time frame.

Contingency planning is part of any smart goal planning, especially one with a potential downside. When you prepare for the worst, it means you don’t have to worry about it happening (as much), but instead concentrate on what you need to do.

Think about what you’d like to pursue and consider these questions:

· What is the worst-case scenario?

· How can you ensure this scenario doesn’t happen? (Then, incorporate these steps into your plan.)

What if this scenario happened anyway? What would you do? (Your solution shouldn’t be to “quit,” but to identify next steps that’ll move you toward your ultimate vision.)

Get off your Big Ask

The questions I ask my clients: “How much do you want to make your vision happen? How much work are you willing to put in?” Because unless you’re committed to your vision and ready to put in the due work (and in the process sort out your own fears), you’d be in for a tough road ahead. You’d be constantly bouncing between being motivated and demotivated and grappling with an array of fears, in turn jeopardizing your own chances of success.

Here’s what I recommend: If you have unaddressed fears about what you want to do, work through them first. Identify what they are and tackle them one by one. If you’re financially strapped, stay on in your job first. Build your bridge (see point #4 above), then quit only when you’re financially able to. If you’re worried about failing, create a contingency plan ready (point #5). Build a solid plan (point #3), and then take action on it.

Sort through your $*!*. Be clear about what you want. Don’t take one step forward only to take two steps back; rather, stand still, work through your stuff, then take action. Because when you are clear about what you want and follow up with relentless action, God’s promises prevail and He will give you what you want. I know that because I’ve seen it happen, not just for me, but for countless of my clients, course participants, and readers. And I know it’s waiting to happen FOR you. Go to the GUIDES area of my website and download my Empower Ebook © for support .