One of the most challenging aspects of your career is knowing when it’s time to move on to your next opportunity.
As you reflect on where you are and what’s next, dozens of questions race through your mind. Is there more to learn here? Should I double down on my current role? Do I still have room to grow and level up my skills? Is this a passing moment of doubt where I feel like quitting because this is hard? Or is it because this experience has run its course and it’s time to move on?
Throughout my career, I’ve pushed the limits of staying too long at certain companies. But I’ve also had moments of doubt where I felt like leaving early because things were hard. Together, these experiences have allowed me to consider the decision point between sticking it out in a current position versus transitioning to something new.
Leaving to pursue a new opportunity at the right time can be one of the best ways to accelerate growth and properly time the Sigmoid Curve—an S-shaped curve that tracks learning, growth, and decline. The goal is to make calculated leaps when you’re at the pinnacle of growth before you reach the decline phase. Otherwise, you risk stagnating and handing back gains you’ve made. But the trick is knowing how to self-assess and recognize once you’ve reached this point.
In October of 2019, I felt like I was reaching the end of the line with my then-current company. But I couldn’t quite articulate why. One afternoon, I took a coffee break with a close friend and colleague. We talked about the challenges we were facing and the patterns we noticed. We also reflected on the problems we were trying to solve as a team and as an organization.
I voiced my struggles contemplating whether or not it was time for me to move on and try something new. I mentioned how I wasn’t sure if I cared about solving the problem we were focused on anymore. Not just on our individual team, but the underlying problem the company set out to solve. And with this passing thought, I started to identify my true litmus test for knowing when it’s time to look for a new job or double down on the current one.
I asked myself two questions to better understand my level of engagement:
1) Do I still care about solving this problem?
2) Would I take this job if I were offered it today?
If the answer to the first question is no, that’s when you know it’s time to move on. It’s also an indicator you’ve reached the decline on the Sigmoid Curve and it’s time for your next leap.
If the answer to the first question is yes, but the answer to the second is no, maneuvering within your current company to a new role remains a viable option to jumpstart a new phase of growth.
But if you continue to idle in your current role without being invested in the problem you’re attempting to solve, you’re allowing both comfort and fear to dictate your career. To be fair, it’s easier to sit by and complain than it is to put yourself out there and try something new. It’s also the hallmark of a fixed mindset and the fastest path to unrealized potential—limit all risk and failure.
There are certainly circumstances and economic conditions when you have to suck it up and deal with it. But you should always be working to anticipate this decline—where learning and growth begin to slow—so you’re able to stay in front of it.
One alternative to overstaying is flaking from one job to the next. As soon as things get hard, you bail. But the truth is that if you want to make a meaningful difference in your work and the problem you’re facing, you have to be willing to suffer. The same is true for growth. If you’re unable to stick it out when things get tough, a lack of resilience will come to define you. Both your work and experiences will forever lack depth.
On a surface level, those who float from one job to the next might seem like the polar opposite of those who stay too long in a single position. But both are attempts to do what’s easy. When things get hard, the easy thing to do is retreat and cover your ass so you’re not the one who’s accountable. Just as when you’ve started to stagnate and growth has tapered off, the easy thing to do is stick with the familiar and your routine—no matter how unfulfilling it is—rather than putting yourself back out there.
Instead, do the hard thing. Fight for what you find meaning in. Aligning yourself to this requires reconciling when an experience has run its course versus when quitting is the easy way out. From here you can find the courage to take new risks or push through challenging moments.
“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.”
You’re a better version of yourself when you’re working on problems that you find meaning in. Meaning is a force multiplier for your own engagement and growth.
When you pick a problem you find meaning in, things won’t always be perfect and there will still be noise to sort through. Engagement is cyclical. There will be times you feel close to burning out or struggle to sustain engagement. You will hit low points that you have to push through. But observe your reactions in those moments. Is it because you genuinely don’t care about solving the problem anymore? Or is it because you’re tired, it’s been a hard week, or someone pissed you off? The latter is an indicator that you need to step away and recharge before digging back in.
When you’ve reflected on these questions, if it’s time to move on to something new your response won’t be riddled with emotion. It’s an observation and acceptance of a fact. Not an impulsive reaction. It’s just time to move on.
This is the realization that I came to in my last position. I cared about the company and the people I worked with. I just didn’t care about the problem anymore. I felt like I had given all that I was capable of. That was my reality. And accepting it helped me identify the best path forward.
From here you’re able to make the necessary moves to position yourself for your next leap and optimize for learning and growth. Whether you’re able to make your next move in days, weeks, or months, it’s important to find an outlet to immediately immerse yourself back in a learning phase. Even if you have to pursue this outside of work by writing, reading, or learning a new skill while you search for your next opportunity.
As your progress through your career, what matters is that you pick a problem you care about. One that’s worth suffering for and resonates with you at that moment in time.
But you must also be able to recognize once an opportunity has run its course. Not because it’s hard. But because the problem you’re solving doesn’t generate the same level of sustained engagement as it once did. That’s one of the best signs that it’s time for your next leap. And timing your leaps is one of the best skills you can develop in your career.
And if you find that deep down you still care about the problem, there’s no better indicator that you’re in alignment and focused on the right thing.