How I Handled It...

The first of our guest blogger posts is below. If you would like to contribute, please see the October 1st post and contact us!

How I Handled It…
How do you know when it might be time for you to look for a new position? Is it about not being challenged enough, or being challenged too much? Being too emotionally involved or too disconnected? Needing more money? Needing less responsibility? Needing a better ideological fit? A better ethical fit? Not liking the people with whom you work? Not liking the person you become when you’re there? Maybe you or your family need to live in a different place. There are so many reasons to change jobs, so how do you decide when it’s time? Here’s how I handled it.

Earlier this year, I accepted a new position, which began on July 1. A lot of planning went into applying and interviewing, relocating, and leaving great friends. Long before the decisions about where to apply and whether I wanted to move was the decision to start looking. I know a number of people who look at job postings all the time and talk about whether they might like the jobs they see. I was not one of those people. (I did look regularly at whether there was an educational director position open at the Smithsonian, but I never did come across that posting).

Ten months before I applied for any posted job, I began to think about whether I wanted to continue in my position, which I had held for 7 years. I was struggling and frustrated with a number of things, and I didn’t know that I wanted to work there anymore. I considered returning to teaching, leaving special ed for general education administration, or moving to teaching at the college level. To organize my thoughts, I made a list of the things that were bothersome to me. The list was long and disjointed. Some of the things were minor, and I realized that they were bothering me only because I was stressed out. I took those off the list. Other things were problematic, but I knew I could not impact them, so I took those off the list as well. I ended with three things on my list. As I pondered these last three things, I knew that I could not continue in my position if these three things did not change - and I thought I could affect all of them.

I rededicated myself to working on these three things as we moved into the new year. I went to my superiors, and I explained the importance, to our students, department, and district, of the things on my list. I asked for their help. I made plans about how I would address each of the issues. I needed to make sure that if I did decide to leave, it wasn’t because I didn’t try hard enough. As it turned out, even with my efforts, the important things didn’t change, and the minor things that were bothering me didn’t change either.

In the end, it was about me, not about circumstances or people or things that I wanted to be different. It was time for me to leave. That didn’t mean it wasn’t a hard decision to make; it was incredibly difficult. Finding the place where I wanted to go was the next step, but for me, I had to first feel confident in leaving. That’s how I handled it.