Have you imagined being someplace else, doing something different, or thought that your life could be better, if only … ? These are not unusual thoughts. Many of us have wondered about how to change our work lives, how to step out of the familiarity and routines that no longer interest us. However, the longer we continue to wonder without taking action, the more energy is lost, keeping us in the same place.
The Five-Year Rule
I have coached and advised many adults for the past 35 years on how to increase their career confidence and/or how to aspire to the next opportunity for a promotion. These are relevant goals for career planning, but what if you do not want to be promoted where you are or you feel that life is passing by the longer you stay doing what you are doing? This is where the Five-Year Rule applies, when I say to a client, “You do not want to look back in five years and say, “I wish I had not stayed; I wish I had gone.”
Jeanette transferred from Atlanta, her hometown, to a more senior position at a Boston bank. As the highest-ranking African American woman in the securities division, she knew that the performance stakes were high. After three years, Jeanette sought career coaching with me. She felt that the treadmill was wearing her down, leaving little time to be with friends, visit family, and pursue her photography interests. We evaluated her options for upward mobility and the increased intensity required. Jeanette also engaged in visualization exercises about how an alternative pathway, pursuing her love for nature-focused photography, might look. A year after she began career coaching, Jeanette resigned from the bank, identified a photography school in Atlanta, and returned to be closer to family, former colleagues, and long-time friends. She wrote a year later to say that the Five-Year Rule worked for her and that she was sharing it with others as well.
What Does it Mean to Stay? What Does it Mean to Go?
While these questions might seem self-evident at first, they are actually important questions that require deep reflection, self-questioning, and feedback from skilled professionals. Change⏤even planned change⏤creates discomfort, which is why many individuals stay with the familiar. Keep in mind that there are losses and gains, whatever the decision taken. A professional career coach can help guide you through the next steps in your career through self-assessments, visualization exercises, role-playing, and the preparation of scripts for different scenarios. If you recognize your options and alternatives, you will be in a better position to make an important life decision. What would you like to do now?
Dr. Arredondo has provided coaching to dozens of professionals over the years and was a psychotherapist for 25 years. She enjoys guiding individuals on their life and career journeys.
Sign up for the seminar “Should I Stay or Should I Go” hosted by Dr. Patricia Arredondo below.
Sound wisdom, Patricia. In my experience too, its the hard work and inherent setbacks which discourage even highly competent, bright people from engaging in the transition process. Career counselors can help the client connect to that “spark of inspiration.” Sometimes that may be faith or spirituality.
Keep up the good work. I have fond memories of our collaboration at UWM.
You are a premier career counselor Tom. Thank you for your comment and thought about the “spark of inspiration”.