When It’s Time to Move On

Photo by Sue Ivy

“You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you.”
~ Alexander Den Heijer, Nothing You Don't Already Know

I have several friends who are moving into a new stage in their lives, and they’re trying to figure out their next steps. It’s not an easy task, but it’s an essential one to undertake, periodically, if we’re to remain engaged with life. If we’re lucky, we may have the opportunity to reinvent ourselves several times during the course of our lifetimes. We can get a new job, go back to school, join a volunteer organization, or move to a new locale.

So many of us land in some job initially, a job, for whatever reason. And maybe it’s fine at first, and we progress in our field over time. And one day we wake up and realize that maybe it’s not the job, or even the field, for us. It doesn’t feel like us anymore.

As we go through the different stages of life, we come to various junctures where we’re ready for a change. We want to do something more meaningful, to contribute something more in line with our highest values, but we have no idea how to go about figuring out what that is.

We just know it is time to move on.

A nurse grows physically weary of the hands-on work. 

A psychotherapist is ready for a more upbeat profession.

A professor is planning for retirement. 

They are called to something else. But what? 

They are waiting for the whisper of an idea.

Maybe this…

Maybe that…

One day, if they are listening, a tiny spark of an idea will start to form, and they’ll begin to feel a kind of energy with it that’s hard to define. 

Oprah once said that in the early days, when she started to be deluged with requests but still had serious trouble with people pleasing, she became overwhelmed. She needed to figure out how to determine what to take on, and what to pass on. Eventually she developed a method of inquiry that worked. She decided that the only valid question to ask herself when evaluating each new opportunity was:

“Is this me?” 

Others will have their opinions, and it can be helpful to know what friends see us doing. Sometimes they know us even better than we know ourselves.

Still, it’s easy to get waylaid during this quest.

In the early stages of our exploration, an opportunity may come along that sounds so good on paper. There is excitement at first, especially if it seems like an important job. We imagine telling our family and friends about it and them being impressed. But the moment we begin to seriously consider it, we’ll get a foreboding feeling. 

When we’re making big changes, it’s easy to second-guess ourselves, to think that it’s just fear we’re feeling. And it may be. But if the closer we get to pursuing something new, the more dread we feel, we must stop and address those feelings. 

Pivotal decisions require careful discernment.

Thankfully, our intuition can show us the way, if we have developed a habit of paying attention to it. Sometimes we like the idea of the opportunity so much that we ignore the red flags. That’s the immature ego at work—the part of us that wants to make everyone proud, even at a cost to ourselves. The inauthentic part that can pressure us to live up to everyone else’s expectations.

Whenever you hear an inner voice screaming, “This is not me!,” listen carefully!

If you’re at a juncture in life, trying to figure out what comes next, do your research and talk to your friends, but then go inside to the deepest part of your true self. 

Wait for the real “This is me,” where the more you think about an opportunity, the more excited you get, even if you’re scared. 

When it’s right, you’ll know. 

And when you figure out what it is, I’ll be doing a little happy dance for you.

You’ve got this!

Affectionately,

Elaine