The honest reason
Boredom, ceiling, redundancy risk, ill health, meaning. The reason underneath the reason you tell yourself.
In progress5 min↓ 837 words
§ Journey
Boredom, ceiling, redundancy risk, ill health, meaning. The reason underneath the reason you tell yourself.
I've watched a friend spend two years telling everyone he wanted "a new challenge" before he admitted, on the back deck one Sunday, that what he actually wanted was to stop sitting in meetings he could no longer stomach. Two years. The "new challenge" line cost him forty interviews for jobs he didn't want, three coaches who couldn't help him because he wouldn't tell them the truth, and most of a marriage's patience.
The pivot starts the day you say the real reason out loud.
Most men over forty-five who are thinking about a career change have a public reason and a private reason. The public reason is the one fit for LinkedIn. The private reason is the one you only say to your partner at night, and even then only after the second glass.
In my experience, the real reason almost always comes from this list:
That's it. Most pivots have one of these as the real reason and a different one as the public reason. Notice which one you've been telling yourself. Notice which one is true.
The interesting thing is that the public reason usually isn't false. It's just incomplete.
A man who's bored will genuinely also want "a new challenge". A man who's hit the ceiling will genuinely also want "to do something more entrepreneurial". A man whose health gave him a fright will genuinely also want "more time with the kids before they're gone". The public reasons are real. They're just downstream of the private one.
The problem with leading with the downstream version is that it makes the whole pivot fuzzy. You can't aim at "a new challenge". You can aim at "leaving a job where I haven't learned anything in three years". One is a feeling. The other is a target.
Three things shift the day you write the real reason on a piece of paper:
The search gets specific. "I'm bored" rules out at least sixty percent of the roles your recruiter is sending you. "I want out of corporate" rules out another twenty. The remaining twenty is the bit worth your time.
The conversations get easier. When you tell your partner "I want out because I'm bored and the next decade looks the same", she can plan with you. When you tell her "I just want a new challenge", she has nothing to plan with.
The standard for the next thing rises. If you name the real reason, the next role has to actually solve it. A bored man who quits for "a new challenge" lands in the same job at a different logo.
Write two sentences on a piece of paper. Don't email them. Don't post them.
The reason I tell people I want to change is __________.
The reason that's actually true is __________.
If those two sentences are the same, congratulations, your pivot is unusually clean. If they're different, you've just done the hardest part of this whole journey. The rest is logistics.
Three quiet rules:
The pivot doesn't begin with a CV refresh. It begins the moment you stop lying to yourself about why you're doing it.
Name it. Write it. Aim from there.
A blunt field guide to the first month after the conversation. Sleep, paperwork, the kids, and the part nobody warns you about.
5 minHow to start the talk you've been rehearsing in the shower for six months. A practical guide to the words, the room, the aftermath.
4 minWhen she ends it and you didn't see it coming. The first 72 hours, the stories you'll tell yourself, and what to actually do.
4 minA self-interrogation guide for the man considering ending his marriage. Not advice. Questions. The hard ones, in order.
5 min