Knowing When It's Time to Move On

I spent five years in a job I dreaded... in the kind of workplace where everyone quietly packs up at 4:50 to sprint out the door at 5pm. I told myself staying was the responsible thing to do. Looking back, I'd learned everything that job had to teach me within the first year.

In this episode, I'm unpacking something I found myself thinking about while traveling through Italy and Greece last month: how to tell the difference between something that feels difficult because it's growing you, and something that feels difficult because it's shrinking you. Because not all hard is created equal — one kind leaves you exhausted but proud, and the other leaves you exhausted and unfamiliar to yourself.

This isn't a conversation about leaving everything that's hard. It's about getting out of autopilot, learning to voice what you actually need before you walk away, and recognizing that staying somewhere unquestioned has a cost too.

This Episode Dives Into:

• Why we romanticize loyalty (and when it's really just fear) [01:24]
• The five-year job that taught me everything in year one [02:21]
• The difference between hard that grows you and hard that shrinks you [04:48]
• Why you owe it to yourself to speak up before you leave [05:39]
• What it looks like when a working relationship evolves instead of ending [06:31]
• The hidden cost of staying that we forget to calculate [07:43]
• The one question that works for jobs, relationships, friendships, and more [08:32]

Who This Episode Is For:

• Highly sensitive people, empaths, and deep feelers
• Anyone standing at a crossroads with a job, relationship, or city
• People who stay out of loyalty, guilt, or fear of starting over
• Those learning to advocate for their needs before walking away
• Sensitive professionals craving more autonomy and flexibility
• Anyone asking whether they're becoming more of themselves — or less

The Energy Xchange is a podcast for highly sensitive people, empaths, INFJs, and deep feelers navigating relationships, business, visibility, and personal growth.

Links & Resources For This Episode:

• Subscribe to my Weekly Newsletter
• Visit My Website
• Get the Book: The Empath Detox
• The Get The Empath Detox Oracle Deck
• Book a Storyboarding Session (for Creators + Business Owners)

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Energy Exchange, a podcast with deep feelers and quiet leaders. Here, we explore what happens when we start working with our natural energy in both our business and personal lives. I'm Colleen Willett, I'm a highly sensitive professional who spends years untangling patterns of overthinking, people pleasing, and playing small just to feel safe. Now, I help others like me step more fully into their power without losing the superpower of their softness. We don't have to be allowed to be seen, and we don't have to push to be powerful. Everything is energy. Let's start this exchange. Welcome into this week's episode of the Energy Exchange. I'm back in Montana after a really incredible two-week adventure through Italy and Greece, and I don't know, I'm already missing the cobblestone streets, walking to the grocery store, sitting outside for dinner, all those little European things. But it also feels really good to be back home and back into some structure. So while I was traveling, I found myself thinking about all of the chapters of my life, you know, different jobs, relationships, cities. I've moved around quite a bit in the last 10 or 15 years. And then more specifically, the transitions between those things. Like how I knew it was time to make those changes. Today I want to talk about distinguishing between something that feels difficult because it's growing you and something that feels difficult because it's shrinking you. And this conversation applies to jobs, relationships, friendships, business partnerships, even the city that you live in. I think many of us have this kind of virtuous feeling about loyalty. Stay in the job, stay in the relationship, stay because you've already invested so much. We almost romanticize loyalty. And this is not a conversation about leaving everything that's hard. It's really a conversation about getting out of autopilot. That is the number one reason we get ourselves stuck in experiences that don't feel authentic to who we are and how we want to show up for life. Sometimes what we call loyalty is actually fear, fear of disappointing people, fear of starting over, maybe fear of what's waiting on the other side. And those are two very different motivations. The example that always comes to mind for me is my first real job. I had moved several states away for what felt like a big opportunity. I was 22, 23. It was kind of a government nonprofit type position, and the environment was really structured. 8:30 to 5 p.m., no flexibility, no wiggle room. And everyone was just kind of on edge. It was one of those workplaces where at about 4:50 p.m., everyone would quietly start packing up. You know, they're making their one last trip to the bathroom, getting ready to sprint out the door the second the clock hit five. If you watch The Office, think of Stanley Hudson, right? That's what we were living in. And I remember thinking at the time, this is adulthood. This is what people do. And I really just disliked the idea at that time of what adulthood was and what it meant to go work in an office. And there was nothing inherently wrong about this workplace environment. My boss was simply a structured person. And that was the expectation for the workplace and all of the people in it. The problem was, if you know me at all, I'm not wired that way. I'm a creative. I like flexibility, freedom, autonomy. And at 22 years old, I didn't know there were other ways to work. And I also didn't feel like I could advocate for anything different. I think back then there was also this collective narrative of we're working for the weekend. You put your head down, you hope for your annual 3% raise, you do what you have to do, and that's what I did. But I have never in my life dreaded a Monday more than I did from the ages of 22 to 27. Sunday evenings were the absolute pit for me. And I stayed there for five years. What's interesting to me looking back is that I don't think it was a bad place. If I walked into that exact same environment today, I would handle it completely differently. I'd be much clearer about what I need and how I work. I don't know that I would even accept the job without having those conversations. But at 22, I was just doing what everyone else was doing. I was following the script. I did learn a lot of important lessons in that job. But I probably learned them in the first year. I didn't need to stay another four years to learn those lessons. That experience was never going to be the place where I became the version of myself I wanted to become. And that's where I think there's a really important distinction to make. Like what is hard? Just because something's hard doesn't mean we need to leave it, but there's hard that grows you and there's hard that shrinks you. Hard that grows you looks like learning a new skill, building a business, going to therapy, having difficult conversations. I haven't had this experience, but raising kids. Those are the kinds of things that can be exhausting, frustrating, but you're expanding while you're doing them. You're becoming more capable, more confident, more yourself. And then there's the other kind of hard, the kind where you're constantly editing yourself. You're walking on eggshells, maybe holding your breath, not speaking up. The first kind of hard leaves you exhausted but proud. The second hard leaves you exhausted and unfamiliar to yourself. That's the difference. Now, if you're experiencing that second kind of hard, it's not necessarily that the chapter has to be over. There's an important step that we don't want to skip. We owe it to ourselves to get clear both with ourselves and any other parties involved on what we actually need or want. We have to speak up. Have you communicated what you need? Have you explained what isn't working? Have you asked for more flexibility? Because maybe your boss doesn't know. Maybe your partner doesn't know. Your friend doesn't know. If you've never voiced your needs, they haven't had the opportunity to meet you there. And then if you are having those conversations and nothing changes, now you get to make a decision based on information instead of assumptions. We can lift out of the emotions of it a bit. And that's going to be a steadier place to make a great decision from. Also, have a really great example of the opposite workplace situation. I've worked with the same company on the East Coast for over a decade, 12, 13 years probably at this point, in various forms. I've been a freelancer, I've been full-time, I've scaled back to more of a contract position. So my role has changed multiple times as my life has changed. And I've been really fortunate to have a boss who's been open to all of those conversations. When I wanted to pursue more of my own projects, it didn't become an either-or situation. We talked about it. We figured out what I needed and wanted, what the company needed and wanted, and how those things could still come together. And because those conversations happened, I've been able to stay in the same working relationship while allowing it to evolve. But to be in that and to feel like myself and feel good about it all of these years, I had to get really clear on what things I really enjoy, what lights me up, what feels like it's expanding me and leading me towards where I want to go. And then I had to communicate that. And you're not always going to have that willing person on the other side. But if you don't, that's information too. Staying exactly where we are without questioning it, it's not the neutral stance that we think it is. Because just like leaving might have a cost, staying can have a cost too. It can cost you your confidence, your creativity, maybe new opportunities. I think it's really common, and it certainly has been my experience, to spend so much time calculating the risk of leaving something, you know, ruffling feathers, rocking the boat, that we don't calculate the cost of staying. No place is going to be perfect. No relationship or job is going to be perfect. The goal isn't to avoid discomfort. The goal is to find our environments that invite more of ourself into the room, places where we feel safe enough to express ourselves, where we can continue growing instead of constantly shrinking. I could ramble on a little more, but I think that's a takeaway I want to close this out with. Our job is to learn the difference between the hard that is growing us and the hard that is shrinking us. Are you becoming more of yourself in this environment or less? And that question works for everything: jobs, relationships, friendships, business partnerships. The right environments do not ask you to become someone else. They make it easier to become more of yourself. All right, I'm gonna leave it there. If this episode resonated with you, please share it. I'd love to get even more like minded people into this space. Thanks so much for spending this time with me today, and I will chat with you next week.