Recovering from Career Disappointment

Sometimes things not going our way is a great gift in the end. In one of my positions in a wonderful nonprofit organization serving my community, I was in line for and planning on a promotion that would have given me more responsibility, money, and influence in a way that would have been deeply satisfying for me. I kept waiting and waiting for it to happen, and watched the original timeline come and go. It gradually dawned on me that my CEO did not intend to honor the pathway for me at the organization that we had planned out together.

I decided that I did not want to stay in my current position as I had already grown beyond it in my skills and aspirations, so I set a time to speak with my CEO. I told her that I still desired the promotion and felt I was the best person for the job. She said that it was no longer on the table, and I told her that therefore I would be leaving the organization. Of course, I gave adequate notice and made a good transition out of the organization.

The key thing however that gave me the confidence to take the step of being clear with my CEO was that some months before, when I suspected that things might not go my way, I began putting together a template of my dream career in the next phase of my life and began looking for and applying for positions that synced up with that. Before my end date with my community organization, a new position at another company was offered that paid $20,000 more and did not involve me being a supervisor, which I realized I no longer wanted. I was able to transition into my new organization and felt so grateful that the initial pathway had been blocked.

Are you dealing with a disappointment in your career or perhaps moving toward one that seems inevitable? This is the perfect time to play the What if Up? Game. An example of how to play the What if Up game is: What if this is the best thing that could happen to me? What if there is something even greater out there for me? What if this is the freedom and upgrade in my career I have been longing for? And then start to dream and take steps that bring you closer to that dream.