Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction

00:02:13: Switch or stay statistics

00:04:35: The shiny object influence

00:08:51: Applying for jobs versus exploring for jobs

00:12:45: Ideas for action…

00:12:53: …1: love, learn matrix

00:22:02: …2: Squiggly Career safari

00:29:04: …3: scenario planning

00:32:30: Advice when considering switching or staying

00:35:15: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Helen Tupper: Hi, I'm Helen.

Sarah Ellis: And I'm Sarah.

Helen Tupper: And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, a weekly conversation between us about careers, no surprise there, but where we cover the topics that all of us are navigating at work, and share as many practical ideas for action as we can, to give us all a bit more control with how we respond to some of those challenges, and also how we can support other people with them too.

Every one of our episodes comes with a PodSheet, and you can download it, and it summarises some of the ideas that we talk about, some quotes; if you like a quote, like me, there's always a quote in a PodSheet; and it's got some coach-yourself questions as well that you can reflect on.  We know lots of people use PodSheets in their team meetings as well to help them talk through some of the things that we've talked about. Maybe you don't have a team and you want to be part of one.  We have a collective of like-minded learners that come together every Thursday at 9.00am for a 30-minute deep dive into whatever topic we've been talking about.  It is free, it's on Zoom, and all the links for PodPlus, for PodSheets and for whatever else we create, are going to be in the show notes for today's episode.  And if you ever can't find that, because it's a bit different sometimes, depending on where you're listening to the podcast, just email us. 

We're helen&sarah@squigglycareers.com. Today, we are going to talk about how to know whether to stay or switch your job.  We know this is a topic that lots of people are interested in.  We recently posted a matrix that we are going to bring to life a little bit on this podcast as well, but it definitely got a lot of people thinking and commenting about this issue of whether I should say or whether I should switch, and how I can make that decision.

Sarah Ellis: And I guess, within Squiggly Careers, there's no surprise that those choices probably happen more frequently than they did before; and whether that is squiggling and staying within an organisation, so that's still switching; or whether that's staying in your current role and seeing that as an opportunity to progress and grow, I think it's one of those classic career conundrums, one of those dilemmas that we all have those moments where we're trying to figure out what is the "right" decision, and often it's one of those things we end up chatting to our friends or our work colleagues about, when we're going through that process of figuring out what choice to make, what feels right for you. It's really interesting, when you look at some research about how people feel about switching roles, there's almost this idea of, sometimes we rush into switching and then we regret it. 

And a study by The MUSE found that three-quarters of people that they asked, who'd gone into a new role or a new company, found that the job they'd gone into was different from what they thought it was going to be, and I guess that difference ends up leaving people feeling quite disappointed. That number sounded very high to me, and I was thinking about, "Does that reflect my own experiences?" and I would say not, I don't know about you, Helen; but I was thinking about the different switches I've made in organisations and out of organisations.  I wouldn't say that 75% of those…

Helen Tupper: I don't know.  I feel like a lot of people do a good sales job on you, both in the job description when they -- I mean, they don't go, "These are some of the bad bits of the job", they don't do that.

Sarah Ellis: I do!  When people talk to us about Amazing If, someone in our team said that she thought I did a brilliant job of trying to put her off; that's actually what she said to me!  She was like, "I feel like you're really trying --" and I was like, "I'm not trying to put you off, but I am trying to be really realistic about what it's like to work in a small and fast-growing company".

Helen Tupper: But I don't think that's been my reality in most roles that I've gone to.  I think they've gone -- it's felt like a sales job; it's felt like a job that picks out the things that you'll do in an ideal day, rather than a real day, ideal versus real day, I don't think that that's always been the case.  And I think in an interview, people talk about what you enjoy and how you will develop, but they don't talk about, "These things are often very frustrating, and these things are often the biggest challenges".  You might ask some of those questions, but I feel like the primary role in choosing job descriptions is to sell you it and sell it in its best light. I'm not saying that's right, but I think that's probably more reflective of my experience.  I haven't had many conversations like the one that you had then, where someone has said, "Let me tell you ten things that make this job so hard you may not want to do it"; I don't think I've had that!

Sarah Ellis: Maybe that's something we could all think a little bit about.  It's kind of bias beware, isn't it?  When you were describing that, I was like -- it's really hard though, and we're going to talk a bit today about how do you see behind the curtain.  If that is what happens in lots of people's experiences, that they're being sold the best version, almost how do you see the accurate version, which is interesting? Often, I think, when we are thinking about switching or staying, we do all get attracted, and I know this has happened to both Helen and I, by what we sometimes describe as "shiny objects", and I think these shiny objects can cloud our clarity.  Because they're shiny, and we're a bit like magpies, we almost forget, I think, some things that we know are true about ourselves, about what motivates us, maybe what's important to us and we sort of think, "That sounds interesting [or] that job title sounds amazing [or] that company is a company that I really admire", and then we sort of miss the detail, or maybe the ins and the outs, because we've become almost distracted by just how shiny something is!

Helen Tupper: What do you think are some of the one or two shiniest objects that have influenced your career decision, clouded a bit of clarity, basically?

Sarah Ellis: That's a really good question.  Brands probably, like brands that -- although, to be fair, I don't think any of those brands ended up employing me!  So I say that, I was definitely attracted to, in my mind, what were shiny brands, but I don't think the brands that I worked for were super-shiny.  I worked in financial services, which I think very few people would describe as glamorous, I don't know; and then I worked for Sainsbury's, but I was very interested in food and that didn't feel like a shiny object to me. I don't know if this counts, see what you think.  I wonder if sometimes managers and leaders could be shiny objects.  So, I have definitely chosen jobs because of who I was going to be working for.  Now, it feels a bit harsh to call those people a shiny object, but I've also had the experience of those people leaving or changing very quickly after going to work for them, because of course they're entitled to do that, they don't come with your job; and I think I forgot that some of the time.  And that has actually happened to me multiple times, where I have based my decision on something I can't control, which is the person I'm going to be working for.  What do you think; does that count as a shiny object?

Helen Tupper: Yeah, I think people definitely count as shiny objects, and brands; I think they're both relevant.

Sarah Ellis: What about you then; now you've made me do that?

Helen Tupper: One of mine's literally more shiny.  I've definitely made money --

Sarah Ellis: As in coins, shiny coins?!

Helen Tupper: No, shiny car; definitely!  I was like, "It comes with a car?" and for context, I think I was probably still driving my grandad's Nissan Micra at the time.

Sarah Ellis: Oh God, I remember that orange Micra you had!

Helen Tupper: It wasn't orange, it was gold, and it was called the golden bullet; let's be clear, it was gold!

Sarah Ellis: Gold, sorry.  Sure!

Helen Tupper: And it went very slowly, but you know!

Sarah Ellis: Not once you'd got the shiny car.

Helen Tupper: Not once I'd got a shiny car, brand new, and I remember I got to picking gun-metal grey; that was a dream!  That was definitely important in my career decision-making at one point in my career.  And then the other one, I remember, I really wanted to go and work for Virgin, but I was sort of umming and ahing, because I had a job with BP and I was travelling a lot, and I loved the travel that I was doing at BP, so I was umming and ahing about Virgin.  And I remember, I went to the office. It turned out not to be the office I was going to work for in the end; and I went to this office and in the reception, they had a giant sweet shoot that went from high on the next floor, it was on the next floor, and it went down a big, big shoot down to reception, and it was basically full of Haribo.  I remember looking and, "This is just going to be the coolest place ever to work!"  Sweets had nothing to do with my job, and I never got to work in that office, or eat any sweets.

Sarah Ellis: Also, you don't eat many sweets, you're not someone who loves sweets!

Helen Tupper: I think I was then, I think I was a bit more of a Haribo fan in those days, and then I moved on from Haribo!  But yeah, I think just being in that office environment, I guess that was the shiny object.  I think I was so attracted by both the brand, the same as you; but that office environment and being like, "Wow, this place is just cool and it's not like any place I have ever worked in before" and the point of clouding my clarity, I think that place was so appealing that they could have told me some bad things about the job and I might be like, "Oh well, but there's a sweet shoot, so…!"

Sarah Ellis: It could be a really bad day but I'd still get my sweets on the way out!

Helen Tupper: I did enjoy my job there though, so I still took the job and it was still really, really good.  But it was quite an influencing environment, I would say.

Sarah Ellis: And then, the last thing we want to talk about, just for a little bit of context, before we dive into our ideas for action, is just the difference between applying and exploring for jobs and possibilities.  So, it can be easy, I think, for us all to be quite passive and reactive, and we're almost waiting for roles to come our way before we decide whether we're going to switch or stay, so almost because there is a job on the horizon that you see that you could apply for, there's something in front of you, it prompts the re-evaluation, or just evaluation of, "Should I stay or should I go?" Our argument, I think, would be that that's not necessarily the right time to be asking that question for the first time, because you might be under pressure to make a decision quite quickly. 

Often in those moments, it's really easy then to get carried away by applying for something different, and I think you have a very different mindset and more curious mindset if you're being more proactive. If you're creating opportunities and possibilities and being really curious about exploring those, then when those decision points do come your way, it's not a surprise and you're ready for it and you've increased your awareness; so, by the time you get to that point, it doesn't feel like a panicked reaction, it feels like a proactive, "I've already got a sense of what I might do and where I might go.  I'm not thinking about this for the first time in the here and now of a switch or stay immediate decision".

Helen Tupper: I think as well, there's a different energy in applying for a brand-new shiny job that's all there in front of you, the job description, it's all there in front of you, they've made it easy; they've even got a process that you apply for it through.  There's a different energy in that and sort of an ease, I think, versus exploring your opportunities, reaching out to people that you might not know very well and talking to people, maybe shaping the role around you and your skills.  That sometimes, I think, is harder, it takes confidence, it takes clarity about what you want to do --

Sarah Ellis: It's definitely harder.

Helen Tupper: -- and so, yeah, I think sometimes the energy of applying and the excitement of applying makes that seem like the easy option.  But to your point, you can have more risk, because if you're applying and it feels exciting, you might not have thought it through properly; whereas, at least when you explore and you find different roles that you might now know about, or even roles get evolved around you and your strengths, then it's more likely to be a better fit for you.  It just might not feel such an exciting, shiny process along the way.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, and I was reflecting, when we were preparing for this podcast, about my most successful stays and my most successful switches, and they have always been quite long processes.  So, they have rarely been in a very straightforward, binary way, see a job, apply for a job, get that job.  I was reflecting back and thinking, "That didn't ever seem to quite work out for me", and maybe that was because I didn't know it at the time, but I was already Squiggly; it was sort of in me, in my DNA. But I always found that a couple of times where I did do that, where it felt more cold, in terms of just you're reacting, kind of more like a cold call opportunity and you're just applying for something and you either get it or you don't, those were actually some of the times where perhaps I didn't make such a good decision. 

But when I was exploring it over time and almost leading up to that ultimate applying, I felt like I was pulling the right possibilities to me, rather than pushing myself on something. Also, when I did push myself on a few things, actually I often then either didn't work out in those jobs, or I didn't get them anyway.  So, that process of, can you pull the right things your way by doing some of the things that we're going to talk about, I think has definitely worked for me.  But I do recognise, it does take more energy and effort, but I think it's worth it then in terms of the day-to-day reality of the work that you'll be doing.

Helen Tupper: So, we've got three ideas for action now, which are all designed to help you reflect on whether you should switch, or whether you should stay.  The first one is a matrix; hooray, I squeezed a matrix in!

Sarah Ellis: Shocker!

Helen Tupper: I was prepping for this and I was like, "I'll put the matrix first, because Sarah won't get rid of it then!"  So yeah, this matrix is called the love, learn matrix, and it's based on understanding whether switching or staying is really based on, are you loving what you're doing and are you learning a lot?  Actually, if where you are at the moment, you love the work you do, maybe you love the organisation you do it for, Sarah talked about Sainsbury's, she was really passionate about the products; there was a lot of love for that brand and what they did.  And if you love it and you're learning, then that actually is, "Stay where you are".  That is a hard thing to achieve. So honestly, if you're in a place where you can see lots of opportunity to learn and you love where you are, and you still want to progress, but that's really where we say, "Squiggle and stay.  Find different opportunities". 

That is definitely priority explore.  Go find out more about different departments, the skills that they need, think about whether what you want to be known for is what they need, build your relationships.  That is where you want to invest your effort and energy; because actually, getting somewhere that you love and a place that you'll learn is helpful for you and your future, but it's not that easy to find.  So, don't go away from that too quickly.

Sarah Ellis: I have had times where I've loved maybe the organisation, as you've described, felt like I was learning a lot, and almost didn't feel in a position to squiggle and stay, as in didn't feel in a position to necessarily go to a new role, whether that was sideways or promotion.  And I do think there is something, and I've had this advice a couple of times, and it has served me really well, where my temptation was to switch and a few people said to me, "Stick it out".  The reason they said stick with it was because they could see that I did love the organisation and I loved some of the people I was working with, and I did feel like I was learning a lot, but there was maybe something that wasn't quite right.

So for example, I described that maybe it was a manager leaving, maybe there was something, restructures happening around roles, all that kind of stuff that is outside of your control.  So, I couldn't have squiggled and stayed in those moments, but I could stick with it.  And I actually found that was a moment where I was very tempted, a couple of times and in a couple of different organisations, to switch, and I'm so glad that I basically stuck it out for a bit and found work to keep me interested, almost set some time limits so I was like, "Well, I'm not sticking with this forever", but I felt like there was enough to keep me. I did sometimes need someone else's perspective to just help me realise that and then actually, I felt really good about making that choice.  I knew there were some very short-term compromises, but sticking with it actually did serve me really well, especially when I had a slightly natural tendency to maybe think, "I'm going to squiggle and switch in a new direction".

Helen Tupper: I think that's where I am now.  I love what I do and I'm learning a lot --

Sarah Ellis: Are you about to tell me you're "sticking with it" in our company; are you joking?!

Helen Tupper: What I mean by that is, when I have a value of achievement, I could think you could see other opportunities -- I'm not doing this, by the way, but let's imagine that you can look at other people's careers and you compare and you think, "Should I be doing this, or should I be progressing in a different way?" but actually, I think it's just that realisation that if you're loving where you're working and if you're learning a lot, then yeah, stick it out, even when something might not be quite clicking at the moment, because it's likely to get better. 

Or, look at ways you can squiggle, because I just think that is a very strong place to be.  I haven't worked in that many places where both of those things have been true, so recognise it if that's true for you. So the next bit, imagine a slightly different scenario, so you love where you're working, maybe you love the brand, maybe you like the people you're working with, but you don't feel like you're learning.  So, this situation is maybe where you feel a bit stagnating and you're like, "Should I compromise on working for an organisation that I really enjoy where I'm at, to go somewhere else?" 

Now, before you switch, the thing here to do is to stretch. One of the ways that you can learn a lot more in an organisation that you love, is try to use your strengths in different ways, so stretch your strengths.  That might be, "How could I use what I want to be known for on a different project?" or, "How could I use what I want to be known for on another initiative that's outside of my department?"  If you can stretch your strengths, that will help you to be more engaged in your work, you will perhaps learn more from other people, you'll learn more from the different projects that you're working on, and you'll have the energy to do it, because you're enjoying where you are. The risk here is you don't want to stagnate.  So, stay where you are, create some challenge for yourself, and that will increase your learning, and one of the go-to ways to do it is to stretch your strengths. So now, let's imagine that you are learning a lot, but you don't really love where you are.  I have definitely, definitely been here.  I've definitely worked for a business where I was like, "I'm not really liking this company that much, the culture, I'm not sure it's quite right; but I also recognise that this is a situation where I'm doing a job I've never done before, and I'm learning a lot in the process". 

It's quite a conflicting experience, when I reflect on it for me, because you know that learning's great, but then every day is not really making you that happy. The situation here is to connect with some things that can make you happy.  So, two things that are worth you just thinking about for a little bit, before perhaps you think, "I just need to leave this organisation and find somewhere else", because there is a lot of value in working in learning organisations; so to try and connect with things that might make you happy, first of all, people.  People are a big part of what will make us happier at work.  So maybe, first of all, try and find either an individual that could be a good peer for you to learn with, or a mentor that you might connect with that you could learn from; or perhaps even a community, a community within the organisation, might be outside of your immediate role.  But if you can find that sense of connection, those bonds and belonging, it can often create a bit more of that happiness that you might feel like you're missing at the moment. Then, the other thing is purpose. 

If you can find the why behind your work like, "I'm working here so that I can learn more about how to make work happen in a hierarchical organisation" or, "I'm working here so that I can become a better manager, because the diversity of the people that I'm managing is going to help me develop more in the future".  Whatever it is, even if it feels hard, if you can think about, "What's the why behind my work", again it can help you just to find a bit more loving what you're doing that might not be there automatically for you. And then, the last part of the matrix is where you're not learning and you're not loving what you're doing, and this really is the absolute switch mode; and I would say, this is the switch out of the organisation point here, because what are you staying for?  Maybe you're staying for stability, so I'm not saying leap, I'm saying, "Look to leave".  You don't want to go from, what's that saying?  From the frying pan into the fire, you don't want to just jump into something else.  But I think this is, "Think a bit more about what else you could do, where else you could do it", because if you're not loving it and you're not learning, you've got to question, "Why am I staying here, and for how long am I willing to compromise myself for this company?"

Sarah Ellis: So, I think that really helps to give you a bit of a framework for questioning, where are you today, and then what that might mean.  The one thing that I would caution against, with any matrix, as much as we all love a matrix, well, as much as Helen loves a matrix, is don't look to a matrix to give you a right answer. So, just because we have said today, "If you love your organisation, but don't feel like you're learning, you should be stretching your strengths and creating challenge, hopefully that is pretty good advice.  But I think don't look for an "a-ha" moment. 

You can only ever make the best decision that feels right for you with the information you have at that time.  I think sometimes, and I have seen this a few times from people I've mentored or just talked to about career decisions, you know we keep digging to try and make the best decision?  So, we keep trying to find more information or ask lots of questions, and we end up going around in circles, because we feel like at some point, the right answer will present itself to us. I think so often, these kinds of decisions about switching or staying, there isn't a clean-cut, binary, "If I put these things in a spreadsheet, it will give me the formula to tell me what the answer is".  So of course, this also includes your judgement and how you feel.  But we do think you can increase the amount of useful information you have, by thinking about our next idea for action.  This really talks about this idea of exploring. 

So, when you're in that position to make these decisions, you've done some of the hard work already. We're calling this idea for action, doing a bit of a Squiggly Career Safari, so basically being a bit of an explorer when it comes to your career.  So, two actions that can help you to do that, to do this Squiggly Career Safari.  The first one, we describe as job scanning, and this is taking a look around, not with the intention of applying for roles, but just to see what's available; what's available internally, what's available externally, what kinds of skills do they need, what sorts of opportunities do they talk about; what piques your interest? 

When you're looking at all of those different roles, try and notice any trends or themes that they have in common, and we would really encourage you to do quite wide job-scanning.  It's called scanning for a reason. So, don't feel like you have to limit yourself to your area of expertise today, or the industry that you're in right now.  Just have a look for anything that feels intriguing and interesting, and almost look at those job specs and again, we're not trying to apply for those jobs, we're just seeing what we can learn from those jobs about why they're interesting for us. 

It's a great exercise to do with circling things, you're underlining, you're highlighting. I think every time I've done this exercise, and I've done it probably for at least -- I've done it probably five or six times over the last 10 or 12 years, one of the things that I always see, every time I do job scanning, is ideas.  It's actually not careers.  You might be like, "Is it careers or career development, or is it learning?" and it's not.  It's always ideas, it's always innovation, it's always doing new stuff and starting from scratch. I did this exercise recently, because I was doing a workshop where I was talking about job scanning as part of the workshop, so I went onto LinkedIn, had some fun just finding fake jobs that I'm never going to apply for, though some of them I was like, "This sounds fascinating". 

Again, it's so interesting that that just hasn't changed.  One of the jobs, I think was called Founder in Residence.  I was like, "What does that mean?" and there were loads of words in that job spec, like prototyping, new concepts.  I could never have done that job and never applied for that, but that's not the point. The point of that exercise, of doing scanning, is just to be really interested about all of the jobs that are out there.  It starts to give you, I think, a bit of confidence about how you might transfer your talents into different places and spaces, and it does just give you this sense of what's out there, because how often do we really take the time to do this in a really speculative way?  We're speculating and just scanning, and maybe fun is a step too far!  But I certainly think, if you quite like being nosy and just quite interested in lots of different things, it is a fun activity to do.

Helen Tupper: I think job scanning as well, it can help you see, "What are the things I'm interested in, and how far is that away from me today?" because if it's really, really far, then maybe a switch move is the right thing for you to do.  But perhaps if it's not far, then maybe you could stay, but you can evolve the role that you're doing; maybe there are ways that you can weave that in a bit more to what you're doing today, you might not have to switch to get some of that stuff.  So, I think it helps you as well just think about some of those decisions, depending what insights and what appeals to you, when you go through those different job descriptions.

Sarah Ellis: Then the second thing to do as part of your Squiggly Careers Safari is start talking to people, and this is where curious career conversations really come into their own.  This is our opportunity to get a window into other people's worlds, and hopefully the reality of people's roles. So, as we talked about at the start of today, there is a bit of a gap I think between probably jobs that get advertised, and then what happens day-to-day.  So, a good way to get below the surface of what you might have seen in job scanning is to go and speak to people, but in a very low-pressure, informal way.  And in my experience, people are really flattered if you go and talk to them about the jobs that they do, because it shows that you are interested, you're not saying, "I want your job", it feels really far away from that; it's much more about saying, "Can you just give me a bit of a sense of what does an average week look like for you? 

What do you spend your time doing?  What do you find really annoying or really frustrating?" I think you can ask those kinds of conversations when you're in this -- they're not trying to sell you their job, they're just saying, "Have you thought about this?" and, "Let me tell you about what I really enjoy", but also the frustrations that just come with the day-to-day reality of being in this industry, or this area of expertise.  And they'll give you some insights as to skills that might be useful, gaps that you might have got that you think, "That's really interesting, I can go away and do something with that now".  There is also no expectation that after those conversations that you're then going to apply for a job in that area.  It's then very much up to you what you do with those insights that you've gleaned.

I've definitely had curious career conversations on certain roles and opportunities, where I've had two, three, four conversations; and almost the more I've learnt, the less I have wanted to switch into that area.  That, I think, is a really good use of time, because those connections are never wasted, they're just new people who are part of your career community that have helped you to learn a bit about an area, and then you never know what kinds of opportunities might come your way as a result of creating those connections. Often, I have had those conversations, I have thought in my own mind, "I'm opting out of this as something that might feel right for me", but then a different project or a different role comes up in that team, and suddenly I've got some pre-existing connections who I can go back to.  And you can keep those relationships alive, again in a sort of very informal way, where you just stay in touch, and it usually just helps you within your organisation, or your networks, to know a few people that are beyond your day job. This is what Margaret Heffernan describes as, "Building relationships beyond the ones that we need right now", and I think we've deprioritised this a lot over the last couple of years, very understandably, and probably just reconnecting with these kinds of conversations feels important for all of us.

Helen Tupper: So, we've done a bit of reflection, because we've thought about, "Do we love it?  Are we learning?" and then we've done a little bit of exploration, we've talked to some people, we've done a bit of job scanning; now, we really want to get into making a decision, what is going to be right for me right now?  I think that what's right for me right now, is an important point, because we want to meet you where you are at the moment, and this is a decision that might be right for you today, and you might make a different one in the future, and that's fine; we're not trying to fix your future too much.  But to help you with your decision-making right now, we want you to a bit of Squiggly Career scenario planning, so play around with the reality of it and see if that can help you with your decision-making. So, we want you to fast-forward 12 months on from where you're at today, and we want you to do three scenarios: your best case; sort of mid-range case, average; and then worst-case scenario for the job that you could stay in and the job that you could switch to. 

We've got three different questions and we want you to go, "What would be the best case, mid case and worst case be for these things in 12 months' time?" First of all, think about the job that you could stay in.  So, the scenarios are, "What's the best, mid and worst case about what you're working on; then what's the best, mid and worst case about who you're working with; and the third question to ask yourself is what's the best, mid and worst case about what you will have achieved, so in 12 months' time", and you're going to collect all those insights, and then you're going to ask exactly the same questions of the opportunity, or perhaps opportunities, if you're looking at more than one, that you could switch to; so, best/mid/worst about what you're working on in that role in 12 months' time, and obviously that will be your best guess, because you might not know, because you're not doing it yet, but best guess; same in terms of who you're working with; and the same in terms of what you will have achieved in that role in 12 months' time. What you really want to do here is compare the responses, and just see whether that creates any clarity that can help you to make the decision that feels right, right now.

Sarah Ellis: Also, what I really like about that exercise is we're zooming out to zoom in.  So often, when you feel a lot of pressure to make a decision about switching or staying, we're very present-focused, because it feels very immediate.  So actually, what scenario planning forces you to do is do some imaging, and to get you out of any shiny objects that might be getting in your way, any of that kind of immediate stuff that might feel a bit overwhelming; and I think it's quite a refreshing exercise to do, to just give you the perspective you need for the present.  So, almost by doing some of that future thinking, I think it improves the quality of your decision-making in the here and now. Having talked to a few friends about this and going through this process actually very recently, as soon as you talk to people about these kinds of question, I see people get to clarity actually quite quickly, because they start to realise that, maybe you realise that the worst-case scenario is absolutely acceptable, is fine, and hopefully it's only going to be better than that, and that really helps to make your decision on staying or switching.  Or, perhaps you realise that even the best-case scenario isn't actually that appealing for either of the scenarios, and that just really helps you.  So, almost by creating these scenarios, I think you create clarity for yourself.

Helen Tupper: So, what we'll do with the matrix and then the Squiggly Career Safari and then those questions that we just asked is we'll summarise them all on the PodSheet for you.  So, if you want to work this through, or maybe you've got a friend who you know, because they're probably asking you for advice, is trying to work this through for themselves, point them in the direction of the PodSheet, and they can just get that little bit more data to help them make that decision.

Sarah Ellis: And we just wanted to finish, well, I say we; I just wanted to finish --

Helen Tupper: The royal "we"!

Sarah Ellis: Yeah!  I was like, "I'd like to share this, Helen, at the end of the podcast".  I've had three pieces of advice across my career that have really helped me make decisions, when I'm thinking about switching versus staying.  So, I just wanted to share them, in case it feels relevant or useful for anyone listening. The first one is to do with switching.  So, when I was considering switching, and I thought I wanted to but wasn't sure, an informal mentor just said to me, in a very short and concise way, "Don't forget, Sarah, your next job is not your last job". 

He was sort of saying to me, "Well, if you switch and it doesn't work out, essentially you're going to be working for a really long time; it will probably be fine".  I was like, "Oh, yeah, you're probably right". Then for balance, in terms of staying, and I've talked about this before, because it's one of my favourite bits of career advice, I once heard Nicola Mendelsohn say, "Never live the same year twice.  You can do the same job two years in a row, but that job doesn't have to stay the same".  That nuance always just really connected with me, because I think I was quite attracted to newness, I think because I like newness generally, and it was that point about, you can absolutely stay in the same job for two, three, four, five years, but jobs now are always learning and relearning and changing.  So, I found that really helpful. Then, some very liberating advice, which again is also very direct; I seem to have had some very direct mentors! 

I was once talking to someone about this exact thing, "Should I switch, should I stay?" really making it into a massive deal, "This is a life-changing decision", which it absolutely wasn't, but it felt like that at the time, and she just said to me, "Ultimately, Sarah, it doesn't matter what decision you make, because you'll be the person that makes this work".  I was like, "Okay". But in lots of ways, that was really what I needed in that moment, because her point was, and she was actually being incredibly supportive, she was like, "Well, you're the one that makes the difference.  So, if you stay, you'll be the person who will make that brilliant and will work hard and you'll care and be committed.  And if you switch and do something different, that will also be true", and it's that point about taking ownership and control of your career.  She was saying, "I've got that confidence in you, so you do whatever you think is best at the moment.  There's no bad decision".  It's that point, I think, that I needed reminding of at that point, that there isn't a right answer here. You know if you're someone like me, I think at that point, I was searching and seeking for, "Tell me the right thing; I want a right answer", and very rarely is there a right answer.  So also, just trust in yourself that you will make the most of whatever comes your way.

Helen Tupper: I love that, it's a very wise way to end this week's podcast.

Sarah Ellis: And in our next episode, we're going to be talking about how to stop self-sabotaging at work, which is a fascinating topic.  And some of you might have read Emma Gannon's new book about self-sabotage; she's brilliant on this topic, so we'll definitely be borrowing some of her brilliance.  And I think it's also something that we probably all do at some point in our jobs and in our careers.  So, good thing to be aware of and figure out what to do differently.

Helen Tupper: Thank you so much for listening to this episode.  If you've got any feedback, let us know.  You can always email us, helen&sarah@squigglycareers.com.  And if you've enjoyed it and found it useful, as well as letting someone else know, we would love it if you could rate, review and subscribe to the podcast, because it helps us to find more people who might need some help with their Squiggly Careers.  But thank you so much for listening now and we'll be back with you next week.  Bye everyone.

Sarah Ellis: Bye everybody.