Outside Expectations

Have you ever seen a lion before? Chances are your encounters with the king of beasts has been at the zoo where barriers keep them safely separated from visitors. If you have ever been to Disney’s Animal Kingdom, you may have seen lions wandering in more open habitats rather than the full-on enclosures we typically see at the zoo. Maybe you have pondered, why doesn’t the king of beasts try and escape? Well, these lions are well pampered with ample food, water, comfort, enrichment, shade, and they are free from hunters and competition. The lion’s instinct to roam outside isn’t there because they have all their needs and wants met. They don’t think about trying to find any place better. These lions live at Disney after all!

Like the lions at Disney, the corporate cage isn’t made of metal bars, fences, or shatterproof glass either–OK, maybe a glass ceiling and cubicle walls. There’s a lot of us who are comfortable in our careers, to the point we aren’t actively scanning for the emergency exit every lunch break because like the pampered lion, we have our needs met, are comfortable, and don’t think we can find something much better anyway. Is that you? You worked hard, and landed a good paying job. Maybe you’ve been doing this type of work for a while already now, and are well established in your field. Maybe despite being good at it, you just don’t love the work.

So you lucked out that to find something that pays well enough that you’re good at, and maybe you can vacation somewhere fun this year. Maybe the benefits are pretty good, health care, dental, a retirement plan are all nice too. Perhaps you have some schedule flexibility, work ends when you clock out, and your boss isn’t micromanaging you into oblivion. If your bills are paid on time, you’ve got a cozy home, food on the table, and you get to unwind in your free-time then life’s good, right? No reason to leave. Besides, who likes (job) hunting anyway? Everything looks good on paper. What do you really have to complain about? Plenty of people have it worse off. This sounds a lot like the lions at Disney.

Don’t be ashamed, I was willingly caught in that trap and for a long time too. Maybe like me, you also feel despite having a good life and career on paper, you realize something is still missing. Congratulations, you have taken the first step in finding a more purposeful life with meaning outside of your career! No one that’s spent a life well-lived recounts in the twilight of their life an ounce of regret they didn’t spend more time at the office working for someone else, and neither will you.

Some of you may hesitate with this realization, and it may feel uncomfortable. I encourage you to explore: The Guilt of Wanting More from a Good Life.

So, what’s next? Well, curiosity may have killed the cat, but unlike the big cats, we actually are free to leave at any time. Trust me, it’s all panic if a lion escapes their enclosure, but no one will think twice when you are strolling the town outside of your corporate cage. Time to tap into your wild side. Take this as your official invitation to step outside of your comfort zone and seek something more. You don’t need permission from anyone, but yourself.

This doesn’t mean you stroll into your boss’ office tomorrow morning to announce your resignation! Though you may have happily imagined this fantasy when you’re frustrated, leaving without a plan is like jumping ship without a life jacket. Chances are if you are reading this, you usually follow a plan about these things. So, let’s not be so hasty. It took some careful planning and a lot of hard work to get to where you are now, and the truth is it will take a lot of the same to move to where you want to go. The first step though is to figure out where you want to go.

If you feel frustrated or stuck, complaining about it might feel good, but that doesn’t really get you any closer to the life you want. It can be very therapeutic to write some of those frustrations down to identify and process them (Check Out: Dealing with Work Frustrations for tips). If you close your eyes, you can probably think of a number of things you are frustrated with, but can you also imagine the life that you want? Or are you content with just staying in your metaphorical cage?

As you imagine the life you want, where are you? What are you doing? Who are you doing it with? How is it different from the life you lead today? Maybe this image in your head seems a little fuzzy around the edges or far away. That’s normal–we figure out what we don’t like quick, but it can be much harder to find out the things that really drive us and light our fire. Hopefully you have some hobbies you enjoy, and there’s probably a few reasons you could pick out on why you like doing these things. If this exercise is feeling a little silly or woo-woo, take a break and revisit this when you can give yourself the space. Work through the same exercises to visualize where you are, what you are doing, and who with. Write that shit down and revise when you revisit. You will be doing this until that fuzzy picture of what you want life gets a some sharp focus.

You are going to have to get out of your comfort zone and try some things. This is going to take a while, months maybe years, but you’ve got the whole rest of your life on the line! You may have to try things more than once, and the important thing is to be honest with yourself about what you liked or did not like about them and why. There will be some avenues that do not pan out and new discoveries too. This is a journey of self-discovery, and one that you absolutely owe it to yourself to embark on because no one is going to do this for you.

As that mental image comes closer into focus and your chosen direction becomes more clear, you will need to be purposeful on where and how you spend your time. You may lose some friends along the way, but you will most certainly gain new ones as you connect with people living out their passions on a regular basis. These are your role models, your mentors. Good luck to you, the best is yet to come.