#1: It's time to go when your company dismisses your contribution or hinders your growth.

Early in my career, when attending a staff development day, it became clear I was expected to stay confined to the box others had created for me. Prior to the event, everyone had taken the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) before arriving. We would receive our results when a trainer came in that day to teach us about personality types.

I was anxious and excited to open my results. At this point in my life, I had taken this same personality test many times. I was confident I knew what my results would be. I will never forget the moment we all opened our results. Some smiled. Some groaned. Others turned to their neighbors and said, "Yes, the assessment got you right."

I sat staring at my paper, confused by what I was seeing. Until someone said, "Dustin, what were your results?" I responded, "I'm confused. It says I am an introvert." My entire life I was told I was an extrovert. Every assessment I had ever taken confirmed I was an extrovert. I began thinking to myself, "Maybe I've changed. I wonder what new things these results will teach me about myself." Before I could verbalize my thoughts, someone spoke up, "You're not an introvert Dustin. You are an extrovert. You must have answered some questions wrong or something." At the time, I shrugged it off and agreed, "Yeah, something must have been filled out incorrectly. I am an extrovert."

Looking back on this experience, I have come to realize what had happened. I had been confined to a box that my superiors and coworkers created for me. I was not to leave that box. Anything that might suggest I was different or changing was to be dismissed. This became an unwritten, unspoken reality of how others viewed me in the organization for more than five years. The potential I had to offer in learning about who I had become was dismissed by others. Over the years it increasingly became clear that it was hindering my own personal growth because I was expected to stay within my box. This experience taught me that it is time to leave a job when your company dismisses your contributions and/or becomes a place where my growth is hindered by staying. When those in leadership or most of my coworkers have put me in a box, it is time to go.

This lesson gave me the courage to leave a position later in my career that I otherwise would have stayed too long in. Learning this lesson allows me to make quicker, more confident decisions when it comes to answering the question, "Should I stay or should I go?"

One cautionary note, we can be those coworkers or supervisors who put someone in a box and never allow them to grow out of the first judgments we place on them. It can happen so easily to any one of us. I have been guilty. One way to combat this is to view people as having an ability to change and staying inquisitive of those around you instead of making assumptions based on past behavior.


#2 Do not make a fear-based decision.

During another time of transition in my career, I wrote this about my fear of leaving the job, "I now know I stayed too long at [my previous employer]. In reflection, if I dared to believe in myself, I would have moved on one or two years earlier than I did. In my new job, I finally enjoy working again. I don't want to lose that but I fear if I stay in my current role as is too long, I will no longer enjoy it. But I also fear if I move on I will not find another job I look forward to. Fear. What a powerful force." Have you felt this fear causing you to pause and not move forward in an area of your life? What a powerless feeling. Fear can cripple us if we allow it to. It can cause us to stay much longer in an environment we know is not helpful. Or it can cause us to jump ship way too early.

I continued writing in my journal, "I'm tired of allowing fear to push me around and leave me in places of limbo and depression and hopelessness any longer. I won't allow it to stop me from pursuing work that energizes me and that I am good at, like building teams, processes, and procedures. Visioneering and planning. Improving and implementing change."

Have you faced the consequences of fear-based decisions? Maybe it was waiting too long to apply for that promotion and then watching someone less qualified receive the position. Maybe it was quitting a job early in your career over minor irritations and that put into motion a habit of quitting jobs. Now you have been hopping from job to job, unable to find a job to settle into for decades. For me it was being scared to ask for help with my pornography addiction, so I secretly stayed enslaved for decades and it prevented me from building an authentic relationship with my wife. What consequences do you face because of a fear-based decision you made?

While I still experience fear, I have chosen not to allow it to control the decisions I make. Before making an important decision, I always ask myself, "are you feeling pushed by fear or by the excitement for the future?" If I answer fear, I know that I must not move forward.​