Not worthy

Over the past few weeks I’ve spoken to some people who’ve left good corporate jobs to embark on new adventures – and when checking in I’ve noticed a common theme: compromise. And I don’t like it.

I actually don’t mean compromise, which I do quite like. I mean settling. In other words, more than compromising.

Of course ‘settling’ isn’t something new for us corporateescapologists. We couldn’t always choose what jobs we were given. But then it seemed part of the bargain.

Now I’m out, it feels like the bar has been raised.

Which is why when I spoke to those people, I questioned whether they were compromising too much.

I’m only forthright on this because I recognise the same fear in myself. It’s triggered mostly by money, with three children at school age, a mortgage and a wife who worries.  On more than one occasion I’ve found myself on LinkedIn browsing jobs that weren’t as good as the one I left at bp, just to kill the ambiguity of startup life.

I disappoint myself a bit because for decades I’ve had big dreams of building my own business, being my own boss, creating wealth for others and now within sniffing distance of realising my dream, I find myself worrying about silly things like money and uncertainty.

My coach Miffa, (she of the veranda moment) said she was quite “depressed” hearing me talk about money worries this early into my redundancy. And quite frankly I “should pack up Familiarize now if that’s how I felt and get a job”.

So yes, in a roundabout way, this blog is as much about me (of course) as those people I felt were settling.

So what’s going on?

There’s a bunch of things in our minds when we’ve been made redundant. Even if we volunteered, there’s a sense of rejection that the company didn’t fight to keep us. Unless we block this feeling, it will invariably hit when we’re vulnerable and when we’re challenging ourselves. 

There might also be a fear of getting back into the rat race again after a period outside. It takes energy and drive and the more time out, the more effort it’s likely to need. And there might be a fear that we end up somewhere worse than we left.

All these factors – and more – can lead us to settle for something less than we deserve.

By contrast

While I totally recognise these feelings in myself, for me they are tempered by the almost opposite problem. I feel like I am “too worthy” to take anything!

I have become a commitment-phobe. A fear of committing to anything, because I have started to enjoy my freedom – and it plays well with my penchant for dabbling.

But possibly what makes commitment even harder is because I haven’t really figured out what I’m looking for. Or what I want to avoid.

I think I need a bit of structure; try these ideas if you’re in the same boat:

1. I am a big fan of Designing your life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans – it has a tool I’ve adapted, just a y-axis from -10 to +10 and I’ve written down which things have given me energy and a strong sense of self-worth (0 to +10) – and the ones that haven’t (0 down to -10). I call it my Worthy Axis (it needs some branding) – give it a try.

2. Talk to others – a great way to suss out whether you’re settling is to talk to others in the same boat.  See where they’re at. If I can help at all, drop me a line and I can ask some challenging questions!

3. Split up your week into chunks – and decide how you want to use the time. I like the treemap kind of chart to help visualise a week or a month. And check whether you’re keeping to plan.

4. Reflect on the last few months and jot down what you’ve learnt. My guess is your growth has been faster and steeper these past few months because it’s been a time of change and that tends to be where we learn most.

5. Reset what you’ll achieve in the next quarter – armed with all this information, set yourself some new goals to make sure you remain (or become) the person you want to be, doing the things you want to do.

Worthy is a pretty dreadful word; it’s earnest and feels a bit self-pitying. But worth is a modern concept, and I think it’s worth fighting for.

Resist! This is a golden opportunity to design the life you want. Good luck!

If you suspect others of feeling like I have been, please share this blog - and the offer to have a chat is a genuine one. I won’t be so forthright in person!