Welcome to the new manager podcast. I'm your host, Kim nickel. Hello and welcome. I'm glad that you're here and I hope you had a good day at work. Today, we're talking about knowing when to leave.
This is such a big topic and it's been coming up for me a lot, actually, because I have recently chosen to step away from my classes at general assembly for the first time in three years, I am Putting a pause on my crash course for new managers and my Essential skills workshop for new managers three years. I've been teaching that class every month and I will be honest with you it's kind of hard still, I really loved teaching that because it brought me.
Especially once we moved online, especially when we moved online, As a little bit of backstory, I live in San Francisco. And for the first couple of years that I was teaching my classes with General Assembly, I was teaching in the San Francisco campus and so everyone who attended was physically in the same room and we had whiteboards and markers and it was so much fun and I could travel to some of the other campuses and reach the students in New York or in Seattle or in
LA or wherever I was able. Well, to go and then over the last year because of the pandemic, everything transitioned to being online and so I'm still in San Francisco but was what happened? Was my classes. Now were available to students across the country and also around the world and it was so cool to have students meeting in
this online class. How to learn and share about their experiences, as a new manager, or as an aspiring manager, or as a product manager, or an office manager, or as someone who had been managing people for years, but had never taken a class in it before and the richness of those conversations with people from different Industries and different parts of the world and different backgrounds. It's the kind of Conversation. That doesn't really happen
elsewhere. Not that I've found, you know, there's something that is so valuable about having a space to talk about what you're struggling with that work, where you're not with people who know you and you're not with people that are in your same industry, it just broadens your perspective and it kind of opens up your sense of what's possible and and what other people do and other Industries and other.
Organizations. And within that environment, what I also saw a lot of was my students would realize. Wow, I actually know a lot more than I give myself credit for because as I'm sharing my knowledge, right? Like my students would realize that they really had some very valuable perspectives and experiences that they hadn't really held as valuable in the same way. So you might be wondering Ring. Okay, Kim. So, if everything was so amazing, why are you not?
Why are you not teaching it now? And I will tell you it's because a few months ago I started this new work project. I'm working in-house at this other company focusing specifically on manager development.
It's really, really cool. It's a whole new experience for me and I wanted to focus my attention both on the this podcast, I wanted to create more content for you and I wanted to focus more of my attention on this new opportunity that I was getting up to speed on and I realized, oh my gosh, it's time to let something go because I was starting to feel spread too thin and I'm the kind of person who can get really a little obsessively focused on Thing and want to do it over and over and
over again until it's just, right? Until it's just perfect. And of course, perfect doesn't exist. It's not a real thing. So there are always new ideas and ways to improve or adjust or adapt and as a side note, as it sort of additional context, when I was in college, I was a rower. I was one of those people in a very narrow little boat. And I had an oar and it was one motion repeatedly over and over again and the focus of attempting to get this perfect precision, and making these
micro adjustments. The repetitiveness of it was both extremely meditative and it was so compelling because your focus gets so directed in this one specific Direction. So, you know, because I was a great Roar, it's no Is that when I'm teaching a class, I want to teach it again and make an improvement and then teach it again and make another Improvement. And I realized at some point, you have to look up to the Horizon and ask.
What is it that I want now in my journey and does it continue to serve me to obsess on this level? At this scope in, in this place. And so I came to the decision that it was time to pause my classes there and to release them even though they were great. Right. Nothing was wrong. It wasn't like I was leaving a bad situation. It was simply this realization of I'm reassessing re-evaluating
my current commitment. Interests and what I'm feeling called towards in this next chapter of my career and of my life and this moment of realizing, oh my gosh, I think it's time to let this go to let go of this good thing and I wanted to open this conversation of when to let go with this story, because sometimes letting go is letting go of a good
thing. And that can sometimes be the hardest because we tend to want to cling and keep with us, the things that have been very enjoyable and the things that we feel good at, you know, when you do something within one organization or within one industry for a long time, there's something that feels very reassuring and even comforting because you have a sense of competence. You have a sense of I know how to do this. And letting go of that, can be very challenging can be very
hard. So here's what helps. If you find yourself facing this question of do, I let go of this
thing even though it's good. One think about what if letting go of, this makes room for someone else, to step up and into this opportunity, that's one that helps me a lot because one of my fears, the little the little fear voice in the back of my mind says well Kim. If you stop teaching, then what if they don't have anyone to teach this and then your students will be Head and the company will be disappointed and it will create a great inconvenience for everybody.
And what if you're going to let these people down, you know, that have been depending on you to do this. And that's heavy for me because it is Meaningful. I am so interested in being of service and in being helpful and the thought of, oh my gosh, will I let other people down? If I choose to release this? This and let it go. And what really helps is when I think well, what if me letting this go actually turns out to be better for them. Maybe it'll be better for General Assembly.
Maybe it'll allow them to introduce a new teacher, a different teacher, a teacher with a different perspective or a way of teaching. That is really needed. Maybe they can use that time on the schedule for something.
That the students really need. Now, maybe me leaving will free up space in a way that is really a great contribution to the organization but also to my students and also to the other teachers the other instructors and coaches and facilitators, who also have a really great message and really great knowledge to share. What if it's just time for me to vacate this The seat so that someone else can come in.
That is something that makes it feel a lot easier for me, than, to send the email saying, I will be unavailable for the next period of time. I'm not going to renew my classes right now. Is a thought that helps to lighten my heart and make me feel joyful rather than feeling guilty or like I'm letting people down. So that's my first thought if you are needing to let go of
something that is good. And you're worried about letting people down, remember that maybe this will actually be better for everybody in a way that you don't even foresee. You're just creating more space. So that's one. Thought, the other thing is, anytime you choose to leave, there are going to be lots of different emotions. There might be disappointment. There might be enthusiasm and joy. You might be leaving because something really great is happening.
Or you might be leaving because It's been an awful situation or things have changed in a way that you're not in agreement with anymore. So, just be aware that there will be lots of emotions. And I want to suggest that as a practice, give yourself room to welcome and acknowledge and name. What are all those emotions? Don't try to talk yourself out of them or tell you how you
should feel or tell you. You know, the voice in your head that says, oh, you know, I don't know why you're making a big fuss about this or or feeling this way. Just give yourself the grace to invite all of the different emotions. You could even write them down and say, I'm feeling angry. I don't really know why. I'm also feeling frustrated. I'm also feeling disappointed. I'm also feeling optimistic. I'm also feeling grateful. I'm also feeling some Reef for the relationships and the
colleagues. And the wonderful friends that I met. I'm feeling sad about the end of this chapter, give yourself the grace and the room to Simply acknowledge and to write down all of those emotions. It's a lot easier to address them when you're in a period of transition or approaching a transition, then ignoring them skimming past them, or trying to. You know, put them into a box and tuck them away into the archives of your life. Let yourself acknowledge those
emotions. So another reason you might choose to leave is because you get this very clear sense. It's over, it's time to go and I know for a lot of folks that came up over the last year because the pandemic had such a big effect on so many Industries and on so many professions and for me as well, the beginning of 2020, I was a coach work. For a company that would send me to all these different
organizations. And I would lead these full day trainings on communication and public speaking skills. It was a lot of fun. I loved it. I was booked out and I was traveling and it was, it was work that I really loved and enjoyed And when the pandemic settled in and first, it was work from our first. It was, you know, two weeks, maybe three weeks of being at
home. You know, all of these events got rescheduled and then as the week's turned into months and the months continue to expand, I had this realization of this is not going to come back that era of the work I was doing. If it recovers, it's going to A while, it's not going to come back in two months, maybe not even in a year or two, it'll be
different somehow. So this moment of realizing the work that I loved that I was planning to do is suddenly gone this feeling of, oh, it's over, I didn't choose for things to change. So abruptly but they have. And so But I get to decide is what do I want to do with it? And for me, I had this moment of just realizing in my bones, it's over. It's time to let this go, even though you might be a little uncertain about what's going to happen. Next holding on to, this work
relationship with this company. When, you know, that you are not interested in continuing, that's not going to work for you. You have to let it go. It's time. So notice in your life when you have those kinds of moments as well. And the thing that will serve you most in that kind of situation is number one, be willing to see. Clearly don't try to talk yourself out of it. When you have that moment of Simply a seeing from this very neutral place, this is the
situation we're facing now. The industry has changed or the situation has changed something is different. Is this what I want? And listen for the answer and decide yes or no and honor that when you see clearly it becomes much easier to make decisions from a calm and grounded Place rather than from a place of Action or from a place of anxiety and finally, the last story of when to leave is when it's time and this is a little bit different. From the sense of gosh, things are simply over.
I believe that everyone has an internal sense of migration. The sense of when it's time to leave. Just like the birds and the butterflies and so many animals have this internal sense of when it's time to move. I believe that we have this to as humans and within our own career Journeys. Within our own life, the sense of it's time to leave. And for me, the biggest experience I had with that was back in 2012. When I decided to leave a company that I had been at
first, To have. Here's, it's where I first became a people manager. I learned so much and there was this one Moment when I realized that I was going through the motions of my life when I was kind of coasting and that sort of plateaued at what I was doing in that company and it wasn't okay with me that I was living that way. And that I was doing my career in that way and it was a very
scary thought. This thought of maybe it's time to go because once I had that thought I couldn't unsee it, I couldn't unthink it and it was very frightening because I didn't know what it meant. I didn't really know what I was moving towards. And so I sat with this question, you know, what would it look like for me to leave? What would I be leaving for? What would I be moving towards? And it was six months or so. That I really wrestled with this
and initially. I thought, you know, maybe I just need a new job at a different company. Something kind of related to what I was doing and I started interviewing and I went through this one interview process with another organization. It must have been two months, it was so many meetings, so many interviews. A friend of mine worked in that company. She was the one who had told me about the position, so I All, I also felt like, oh great, I haven't an internal Advocate.
There's somebody in the company that is pulling for me, and at the end of all of these interview Cycles, they didn't make me an offer. They went with another candidate. And I was so disappointed because I thought, no, I'm supposed to leave my internal migration, you know, voice was telling me it's time to go. And I thought I'm supposed to leave this company. I was going to go over there and now that's not available to me.
What do I do? And as I thought about this, I thought well I can stay here and continue to interview or try to find something else or I can walk away. And that was so scary for me because I didn't know what was on the other side of this and the thought that came into my mind. Right at this time was you know Kim how important is it for you to leave here? Do you need to have everything buttoned up?
Do you need to have a nice perfect plan with clear steps that you're moving towards or does this matter? So much that you're willing to leave and move into the unknown and trust yourself and Trust the world Beyond Your Horizon that which you cannot yet. See, And when I thought about it, the answer was so clear. It was this thought of this matters so much. It's time for me to go and this idea too of being very clear cited. I thought gosh, like this is risky.
I mean I have some money saved but I don't have a lot and I don't know exactly what will happen. So there is a real risk here. And it was a few more months of really weighing that and feeling through and going through the numbers and thinking through like how could I make this work? What would that look like? Can I consider all of the possibilities? I didn't want to make the decision from a place that was urgent or desperate or reactive.
I wanted to make that choice from a place that felt grounded. And I wanted to leave with gratitude not with resentment or frustration and where I landed was this realization of yeah. This is a risk. But you know what, it's a risk worth taking. And even more than that, I realized I am a risk worth taking.
If I get to live to be an old woman, which is no guarantee not, for any of us. If I get to live to be an old woman, she deserves to know what would have been possible for her in her life and the only one that can give that to her? Is me in that moment making a choice about how I wanted to live and how I wanted to do my career. And my professional life even if I didn't know exactly exactly
what that meant or what that was going to look like. but once I found that bigger perspective, that clarity about what really matters to me in this moment that maybe I hadn't seen before, but once I saw it clearly, I knew what I wanted to do from that place, I relaxed, I still felt some anxiousness, but in my bones, in my body, I felt so much Each alignment and I felt so much trust and so that is how I made the decision. To leave that career, to leave that organization.
I had been there for six and a half years. It was the longest relationship I've ever been in longer than any, any, any person in this relationship with this organization and with this career? And if that's something that is coming up for you, too, and it may at some point in the course of your life. What I'd like to offer you is to Of yourself, time to feel and to think and to get that Clarity to listen to and trust that voice
on the inside. For me, it's a voice that is so calm even when it asked a question that made me feel scared, I knew that it was coming from this very grounded place from this place that I really needed to listen to and Trust. And from there, I could make a decision about leaving and I'll tell you to when I decided to give notice and leave that job. I got a lot of strange responses
from people. You know, one person said, gosh, you know, must be nice if I didn't have my husband and my kids, I would do something like that, that too. I had a few people make kind of jokes about Midlife crisis, which was kind of weird, but I thought whatever that's fine. They're allowed to think, whatever they like, because I know why this matters to me. I know why I'm making this
choice and I'll tell you. Also, I had one person come to me and he said, you know, Kim it really means something. When a company like ours can't keep someone like you.
You're so good here. here, you're so good at what you do and that was so meaningful to me, it felt great, to just feel that appreciation from a colleague, the choices that you make about, who you are in the world and how you live the truth of that, through your career Journey, Are some of the richest and most beautiful questions that you will face in the course
of your journey. And I believe that if you listen to your inner voice to yourself, You will know when it's time to leave whether it's that internal migration awareness. It's time. It just is absolutely time. This is not where you need to be right now. It's time to go or whether it's a moment of realizing how it's over. This company has changed or the industry has changed something in my life has changed.
This current situation, it's just over or Whether you're choosing to leave something, that's really good something that you love because, you know, that it's time to release it, to allow something new to come in, not just for you. But for your colleagues and your students, and the organization that you're with is, well you're creating your life with every choice you make your career is such a big part of that. So remember that you You have courage.
Remember to be curious, remember to be gentle. Remember to offer yourself Grace. Remember that? Not everyone around, you will understand it might not make sense to them and that's okay. That is what I would like to leave with you today. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you have a wonderful day at work and I'll see you next time. Do you want personal confidential help with your
situation at work? I offer one-on-one coaching and can help you overcome challenges reach your goals and become a more effective leader to schedule a consult. Go to my website, Kim nickel.com coaching and we'll schedule time to talk about what's going on with you and how I can help talk to you soon.