A lot of my friends have changed jobs the last few months. Moving to a new environment and leaving people whom we enjoy working with is never an easy thing. Although it’s not that bad today, thanks to Facebook and IM. Every time you think about moving on, there’s always a voice in your head that says you are capable of more and that you must stretch yourself, but another voice is filled with doubts and fear. Fear of what ? Fear of failing? Fear is the worst enemy of greatness. Not one person I know taught himself/herself to ride a bicycle without falling a few times. Did you?
So when is the right time to make the move? Here are the three questions to think about before you make that decision:
1/ Try to envision a picture of your future with your current company’s future. See if you like what you’re seeing. Ask yourself where you think the company will end up in three years and map that against where you want to be in three years. A simple gap analysis will give you a good picture.
2/ Take a look at your manager/boss or other senior members in your organization and see if you can find someone whom you think can be your mentor and help you to break through your current ceiling. We all have ceilings and a little mentorship will go a long long way. Some would think this even more important than the company. You don’t need to like the company’s future, if you like your mentor and you think he/she is helping you to grow, stick around?
3/ Go take an inventory of your job's pros and cons. Write down the top three of each? Write down the three things you enjoy most and ask yourself whether you can do a world class job on at least one of those? Look at the three most hated things and ask if they are necessary for your job even though you may not like them?
As much as we'd all like to simply wake up one day to find ourselves in our dream job, such as having unlimited funding to create the next Facebook, the chance of it happening is probably slightly slimmer than an alien landing on your backyard. Hope you'll find my advice useful. BTW, have you seen the movie "The Weatherman"?
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On the topic of changing jobs, our friend Colin Ballantyne just finished his last day at Blast Radius and is moving on. According to Colin, “I am excited about heading into the new role. My time at Blast has been a great run and I have worked with some incredible talent on some excellent projects. Onward into new challenges, it will be good to have the change.” Colin is wonderful to work with, there is a creative side of him which is somewhat hidden. He has always been very popular with the creative and strategy folks. Best of luck to you Colin!
