My first full-time job wasn’t meant to last very long.
I was in between my studies, with a six month break before I could start what had been my dream for a while: A Clinical Masters in Psychology. It was a long break, so I decided to try take on job while waiting. I was hired with the understanding I would only stay for those few months.
To my surprise, I liked it—I didn’t think I would. To my even greater surprise, I was good at it. It came to the point that one month into the job, I received a major promotion with a very significant pay raise.
For about a year, I was contented. I actually stayed almost three years there, and I left it on good terms with the management. But towards the end, I was deeply unhappy.
It's been a while since I left it, but I finally had some time to sit and think about what were the issues, and here's what I realised.
1. It doesn't matter how much you like your boss.
Even before going into that job, the big boss was someone I really respected. I still do now.
However, at the end of the day, I felt that I was stagnating. That I really wasn't making an impact; even worse, that my presence was negatively impacting the company and the people I was responsible for.
That was one of the main reasons why I left: I simply felt I had nothing positive to contribute any longer.
2. When you end up mindlessly working without growing on your own end, you will burn out.
I was very passionate about that job. In fact, I still feel very strongly about the main cause it supports: education.
But along the way, I realised I stopped growing on my own. That I stopped pursuing self-growth and I was just existing through the days.
That fed into the first feeling mentioned earlier, where I felt I really wasn't a good contributor.
3. Loyalty to the company ends up as meaningless.
Don't take me wrong. I really appreciate all that my previous company did for me, and that they really saw potential in me and recognised it in both terms of responsibility and the accompanying monetary reward.
That—and again, because I believed in what they did—was what kept me at that company for much too long. Looking back, I was unhappy for a while, but out of a misguided sense of I owe this to them, I stuck around for much too long. I had a lot of guilt that kept me there. And that isn't a good reason to stay anywhere or with anyone.
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But what is this leading up to?
Well it's a new year, and I've had time to look back on 2017. I left that previous job in 2016, but I've never had a chance to express these lessons. So here I am sharing it.
I'm still struggling to find what's the best content to share here that doesn't overlap with what I currently do. So this experimentation will have to continue for a while.