For example, I love lifting weights. I try to go to the gym as often as I can, which generally is not as often as I would like. I love lifting until my muscles are jello-y and my legs shake. I love going home and soaking in Epsom salts and knowing that tomorrow is going to be rough. I love walking around like I got hit by a bus after leg day and I love when it hurts to laugh because I killed my abs the day before. I love it for the trade off — the endorphins during the workout and the physical changes I see over time. Absent those days of soreness, I wouldn’t have any of those benefits.

I recently had a client tell me how much she loves the majority of her work. She loves the people she works with and she loves the challenge. But there was a portion of her work that she didn’t like. Specifically, she didn’t like the people she had to work with during the other parts of her day. She came to me wanting me to support her to understand if it was time for her to move on.

(If you find yourself in a similar situation, be sure to sign up for a free consult today and get support tailored just for you.)

As you may have discovered by now, I’m not a big advocate for doing anything until you have squeezed all the juice out of your current experience. In my opinion, moving on implies that you have learned the lessons available to you in that moment of your life and, having done that, you are off in search of a new experience.

None of us want to run scared from job to job but usually we are doing just that. Rather than facing that horrible boss and flexing your skills of honesty and vulnerability, we throw in the towel and move on to the next thing.  We run from that negative experience and those feelings of embarrassment, frustration, anger, and disappointment. We don’t want to experience those emotions and we don’t want to rise up to those challenges, so we jump ship. We run away from them. Time and time again I have seen women do just that only to find that challenge show up in a different form in their next experience.

It is going to be hard.

As with lifting weights, you have to take the bad with the good. There will be pains that accompany your successes. It is going to be challenging and there are going to be days/projects/humans that you don’t like. And that is okay. That is not a reason to leave.

When we know we are signing up for a struggle, at least part of the time, the only thing we have to evaluate is whether our current position provides us the types of challenges that we WANT in our lives. The goal is not to get to a job without any challenges (spoiler: it doesn’t exist), the goal is to sign up for a life with the types of challenges you want. The types of challenges you are committed to tackling. If your current battles aren’t ones you see as worthy, then maybe it is time for a new challenge. But don’t leave because a challenge exists, leave because it’s not the kind of challenge you WANT in your life.

For instance, I know that in order to be fit and healthy and sane, I need to work out several times a week. I know it’s not always going to be fun and I know I’m not always going to look forward to it. Instead, I choose the types of challenges I’m willing to endure–dance classes, interval training, sprints, step aerobics YES. Kickboxing or Pilates, not for me.

I accept that it will be dreadful at times but it will be MY kind of dreadful.

For my client, the most important question I asked her was “what if nothing is wrong here? What if it’s okay that you don’t love every aspect of your job? Then what?” When we stop seeing the 50/50 as a problem that needs to be fixed, we can focus on accepting those aspects of our reality and stop fighting them. Only when we stop fighting reality can we allow the dust to settle and take real stock of our lives and authentically decide “what next?” The answer to that question will be very different once you accept the *bad* parts of your job and stop focusing all your energies on things/people/aspects that are beyond your control to change.

Living with and handling problems is part of what it means for life to be 50/50.

It’s part of what it means to be human.

The choice, then, is to decide what types of problems you are willing to deal with in your career. If a mansplaining boss isn’t the type of challenge you are invested in working through then, by all means, move along, knowing there will be other similar challenges wherever you go. There is no unicorn job out there waiting for you.

So, having accepted the 50/50, how do you know when it’s okay to accept the 50% that sucks or when it’s time to move on: you simply decide. You simply decide based upon reasons that are honest and authentic to you and you like your reasoning. That’s it. If you don’t want to fight the battle to make things better at your current job, just acknowledge it. Own it and know that lesson will be waiting for you in another rendition later on.

Accepting that the perfect job does not exist is only part of the battle. The other part requires us to consider the types of challenges we DO want in life. Once you make that decision–once you CHOOSE your mansplaining boss–it becomes so much easier to just roll with the 50/50 because it’s YOUR kind of 50/50.

Photo by Matthew T Rader on Unsplash

Then it’s Sunday morning and the dread sets in. It’s like Monday is a looming gauntlet, like a watery grave for a stubborn cat–don’t you dare make me get in there, GDI!

Many of my clients lose the majority of their Sundays to that Monday morning dread. “Sunday mourning.”

They spin in negative thoughts and mental sparring matches with their co-workers and clients. They imagine the worst case scenarios–

I swear to god if Associate Suck-Up stops into my office to brag about how he billed 20 hours this weekend, I am going to explode.

When Monday does come around, they are mentally exhausted and wound tightly, just waiting for an opportunity to prove their fears true and blow up on some unassuming victim.

Practicing law is no walk in the park, admittedly, but this Sunday torture is not helping the situation.

Is it useful to imagine the worst case scenario?

Is it helpful to anticipate a dumpster fire?

How is that benefiting you?

What impact is that having on your happiness, never mind your weekend?

What it’s like to sacrifice half of every weekend to your own mental torture?

It is nearly impossible to rationally examine any situation when you are overcome with negative emotions. Instead of thoughtfully examining our choices, we act with knee-jerk reactions from fear, overwhelm, or anger.

Our Sunday mourning feels so justified. We have all sorts of reasons why we feel anxious and depressed. The problem is that we can’t make a real assessment of any situation when we are frayed at both ends.

It’s certainly possible that your Sunday mourning routine is indicative of a need for a career change. BUT what is more likely is that you could change your career and find yourself swimming in the same Sunday Mourning pond.

When we find our brains overrun with negative thoughts about our careers, those thoughts are rarely isolated to that one circumstance.

They are often part of a larger belief system that will follow you no matter where you go or what you do.

I want to enjoy what I do for a living.

I just want to be happy in my job.

It shouldn’t be this hard.

I don’t want to do this anymore.

Thoughts like those will creep into other aspects of your life later on. The belief that your job and your life “should” be a certain way. You should be happy. Your career should be easier. The fact that you “don’t want” to do your job anymore matters. (It doesn’t!) Not wanting to do something is simply a thought. That thought will sidetrack anything you do. It is not helpful. Not wanting to do something does not mean there is a glitch in the matrix.

It likely means you are doing something hard.

Something that forces you to grow.

When you give credence to that thought “I don’t want to do this” you are allowing yourself to use the easy button. To avoid the growth. You are allowing your brain to become really skilled at NOT doing hard things.

None of these thoughts are good reasons to quit a job. They are thoughts you are choosing to believe. They are thoughts that open an escape hatch–an easy out. Cleaning up those thoughts will allow you to truly experience your job, unclouded by these judgments and burdensome beliefs. Then you can decide whether you want to do something else with your life.

Before you make any monumental decisions while in the despair of Sunday mourning, I challenge you to examine the thoughts and beliefs creating your misery. Those thoughts will go with you no matter what you are doing for a living.

“Where ever you go, there you are.”

You are really good at thinking those thoughts and you will keep thinking them even if you change the scenery.

What is it costing you? Have you allowed those thoughts to sabotage you over and over again?

This is the meat of my work with most of my clients. Many of them carry toxic thoughts and beliefs about how their lives “should” be. Thoughts that cause them tremendous pain and cost them their happiness. Working through those thoughts provides them with the peace and space to truly move on and transform their lives.

Want a reprieve? Try it out for free today.

Photo by Juan Pablo Serrano Arenas from Pexels