Life Lessons in How to Break Free From a Toxic Work Spiral
One of the first questions I ask women when they're interested in mentoring with me is, “How long have you been thinking about transitioning or advancing your career?” And often, I get answers like nine months, two years, five years, or seven years. And my next question is always, “Why did it take so long? What have you been waiting on? What's been keeping you in this role for nine months or two years or five years or ten years?”
I'm going to share the three most common reasons that women give me for why they stayed in a job too long.
The number one reason that I hear is fear. There's a lot of fear in leaving what you know, there's a lot of fear in walking away from your current employer, your current job, or your current industry. And I think a lot of the popular career rhetoric has women thinking that they just have to cut and run. And it doesn't take into account the woman who wants to be methodical, intentional, and strategic about her career. As a career coach, one of the things I'm very intentional about is inviting women to be really strategic about their career moves.
The second thing that I think keeps women stuck is that you've normalized either poor performance or bad behavior. They get to a place where they experience that kind of trauma at work over and over again, week after week after week, and you start to think that that's how it's supposed to go. I do think that for women who are not aware of like the fact that there's more, they can get really stuck in the “it is what it is” mentality.
The third and final reason that we're going to discuss is that she didn't think that she was worth more. When women don't recognize that the skills, knowledge, talent, and expertise that they already have are immensely valuable, it truly hurts my heart.
If you work in a corporate field across any different industry, if you work in the nonprofit space, or if you work in education or educational leadership, then I feel confident that I would be a great mentor for you. I have deep in immense experience in all of those fields, and I'm really excited to support you and help you in those spaces. Schedule a call with me today.
Check back each week for the newest blog post from Mentor Me!