My Promotion Was Killing Me: Here’s What I Did.

My promotion was killing me.

I’ve got a management background although I’ve been playing happily in the fields of the helping professions  for the last seven or eight years. But at the end of 2015, I was feeling the tug of management again. A job that sounded great for me opened up in my company. On paper, it looked great—a nice raise, working with volunteers (one of my loves!) and a little more prestige on the resume.  What could possibly go wrong?

Within a few months, I knew I’d made a huge mistake. I loved the part of the job that involved working with the volunteers but I spent far, far too much time in front of spreadsheets, preparing reports, and doing paperwork. I missed my patients and their families. I missed doing the work that I love. The raise that went with the position wasn’t enough to compensate for what I missed.

I floundered along, trying to make the new position work. My department achieved some of the turn-around goals we were working on, but I fell deeper and deeper into an emotional and spiritual rut. I was disconnected from my purpose in life, which is to help people who are hurting emotionally. There were some great highs because working with volunteers who are passionate about what they give is a blast, but ultimately I knew that I wasn’t passionate about what I was doing. I needed to make a change.

Fast forward to February, 2018. My life looks nothing like I expected, but it’s awesome.

For one thing, I’m back to doing what I love, but I have much more autonomy. Instead of working full-time, I’m working two per diem positions and completing a second Masters degree in—you guessed it!—a helping field profession.  One of my jobs is in a Trauma Unit, so I’m stretching and growing professionally while I help people and prepare to expand my ability to serve hurting hearts.

Living the 25 Percent life helped me make the change I needed. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be blogging at times about career changes. I’ve made some pretty major ones in my life, going from being a salaried wage slave to an entrepreneur without a net, from an insurance agent to a hospice work, and the most recent change into and back out of management. I hope you’ll comment on your own career changes and what worked, what didn’t work, and how it all happened.