#185: Humiliating career moves
This is a free preview of a paid post. To read it in full, subscribe for $5/mo. You’ll gain access to my Tuesday podcast, my Friday recommendations, my monthly Q&A column, and the full paid archive. To learn more, visit Maybe Baby’s glossary/FAQ. Thank you! Hey! Welcome back to Dear Baby. Today I’ll be answering 4 questions about 1) taking a long-desired career leap and then loathing it, 2) whether I have a fantasy career or aspirations beyond writing, 3) what my EIC tattoo means (lol), and 4) what to do about a partner that doesn’t like the same things you like and the resulting distance is bothering you. Reminder that you can submit anonymous questions here. I’m always blown away by what you all write in…so hard to pick. Thank you for trusting me!! 1. On professional shiny objects
I’m so sorry it turned out this way! This is exactly why some career moves are called “leaps” and not steps. They aren’t careful and predictable, they require nerve and faith, they carry risk. A lot of people spend their lives imagining taking them without ever following through. You didn’t do that! That’s something to be proud of. Staying might have been “safer,” but inaction has its risks, too. Had you chosen not to do this, you might have always wondered if you’d short-changed yourself, or been complacent. Subtle as that feeling may be, it can persist for a long time, and slowly erode your confidence. Now you’re faced with a much more affronting feeling: You hate this new job and your previous illusions of certain success have been shattered. I know you feel humiliated and miserable—an understandable comedown. But you can work with this. Our shared mythology around big leaps tends to focus on their explosive potential, but hating your new gig was always a possibility. You deride yourself for romanticizing it, but what else were you supposed to do? You didn’t know any better, so you went to find out. If your old boss’s encouragement and your husband’s support were predicated on everything working out perfectly, those would be pretty superficial forms of encouragement and support. I’m willing to bet they were a lot less conditional. I know none of this changes your current day-to-day misery, but I’m trying to release you from the humiliation you’re feeling. What you’ve done is brave, full-stop. The pressing question is what you’re going to do next. I can’t tell you whether to quit or not, but I suggest reframing the decision—this doesn’t need to be a huge test of your character. It can just as easily be a sign of growth to quit something than to stick it out, so there’s no use moralizing this before you’ve had the chance to ponder it from a more neutral perspective. Miserable as you may be, do you have more to learn at this job? Are those lessons worth it to you? Being thrown into a difficult environment and figuring out how to make it work marginally better for you could be a really useful experience in the long run, but being panicked all the time isn’t conducive to learning. You can decide, at a certain point, if and when the former gives way to the latter. You don’t need to sacrifice your wellbeing because you’re ashamed to pivot. This experiment was in some ways a practice in self-respect—respecting yourself may need to change shape now. You were living with a big question and you sought out an answer. This obviously wasn’t the one you wanted, but you still got one, which is more than you had before. It’s worth remembering how many benefits to taking leaps have nothing to do with how they actually turn out. They can unlock our decision paralysis, show us what’s on the other side of all our rumination, remind us that we’re the authors of our own lives—all extremely useful lessons for getting older and self-actualizing. Whatever you end up doing, I hope you don’t let this outcome harden you to betting on yourself. One day this gig will feel like a bad dream, and you’ll be more awake than ever. 2. On fantasy careers
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