Hey, welcome to Lessons From A Quitter, where we believe that it is never too late to start over. No matter how much time or energy you've spent getting to where you are. If ultimately you are unfulfilled, then it is time to get out. Join me each week for both inspiration and actionable tips so that we can get you on the road to your dreams.

Hello my friends and welcome to another episode. I'm so excited you are here before we jumping into this episode. If you are around next week on September 10th, I am gonna do a free masterclass called Quit the Rat Race. Whether you wanna quit your job or not, there is a different way to approach your career so that you're not burned out and exhausted and overwhelmed and insane all the time. We have to find a way to live within corporate America.
I get it. But I'm gonna give you a way that won't take everything from you. So if you've been trying to figure out how to get off this hamster wheel, if you wanna stop all the grind and hustle and hating Mondays living till Friday, this class is for you. So you can go to twitter club.com/masterclass and sign up. We're gonna do this September 10th, 2024. If you're watching this afterwards, I'm sorry, but I'm sure I will have other classes up on my website so you can check that out. But if you're here, I would love to have you and see you there on the 10th. Okay, I got a DM and I thought it was such a great question and it pertains to this idea of taking control of your own career. And this person asked in the way of like, how do I stop letting my victim mentality stop me without beating myself up?
And I always am hesitant to use the term victim mentality because I do think it could be triggering for a lot of people and I think it can be misused in certain scenarios. But I understand what the question is saying and I actually so appreciate that question because I think that whether you wanna call it victim mentality or not, I think for so many of us, we give away so much of our power and our agency in our life to other people, whether that's our boss, whether it's our family, whether it's our relationships, we give away our own ability to create happiness, fulfillment, connection, excitement, whatever it is you wanna create. We believe that because there are forces outside of us, which there are undoubtedly and we're gonna get into that there are things that we do not control that happen to us. There are things that are deeply unfair and tragic and horrible that happen to us.
And yet I think for so many of us, we have sort of been programmed to oftentimes lie down and just take it and decide well, like this is what it is and there's nothing I can do about it because I don't control the universe and everybody else and all these other circumstances. And when I learned this concept of like taking control of my life, it really changed everything for me. And one of the things that I think about a lot is a lot of what I'm gonna talk about in this episode, but one of the main things is that when I realized when I was at kind of my unhappiest, when I was at a point where I really felt trapped and I felt stuck and I felt like I had spent so much money getting my degree and I was in debt and I felt kind of stuck by society's expectations and what everybody was gonna judge me for.
If you had told me then that I had a lot of choice, I wouldn't have believed you. I thought like I didn't have any choice. I was sort of stuck in this place. One of the things that I heard that really changed my life is that no one's gonna come save you. It's just the reality of it's, you know, like I remember hoping for my boss to lay me off. I remember there was a round of layoffs and I prayed the night before that they would just lay me off instead of me having to make the choice to quit because that was so difficult for me and I felt so paralyzed by that choice that I wanted someone else to make that choice for me. I wanted to give away all of my agency and just let them decide what my fate was. 'cause it would've been easier for me in that moment.
And I remember that distinctly. And I didn't actually get laid off, I didn't get what I wanted, but I remember that feeling and I think so many of us give into that, that powerlessness that like, I just wanna win the lottery. I want someone to come and just sweep me away from this and I don't wanna live in this. Whatever the reality is that I have right now, whether that's, like I said, a relationship you're in or the career you're in, I mean for our intents and purposes we obviously talk about it with a respect to career. But this is with respect to your whole life. When I realized nobody's gonna come save me, nobody's gonna change this but me and it's gonna be painful and it's gonna be hard and it's gonna suck in the moment, but in the future it can be better, it will be better.
Like do I want the hard now so that it is easier later as opposed to constantly giving in to the easy now staying at the status quo, which by the way, the easy isn't easy here. Like I was miserable then it was just easier because I didn't have to make any changes. You know, better the devil, you know than the devil you don't. I sort of decided like it would've been easier for me to stay here 'cause I already knew kind of the law. I already had the degree, I had the connections even though I was deeply unhappy, it required less momentum for me to to make change. But I remember when I heard that when someone said, nobody is gonna come save you. And I realized like, you know what? It's up to me. I have to save myself if I want something different.
And that is really the crux of what I wanna talk about here. And it's the single most important thing that I think that you can learn. And it's taking that a hundred percent responsibility for your own life. It's stopping the passive way that so many of us go about our lives where it's everybody else's fault that I'm unhappy. And I'm not saying that there isn't truth to it. Some people may be causing more stress in your life, right? It's like it's my boss's fault because he sends email at eight o'clock at night. It's my husband's fault because he never takes care of the kids the way that he should. It's my mom's fault because she doesn't respect my boundaries and she comes over unannounced. It's all of these people's fault and I don't have to do anything. I don't have to push against it, right?
I can stay in my people pleasing ways and I can not deal with my own discomfort and I can just be mad at everybody else. And when I started realizing like I have a choice in this, for a lot of us, for a lot of you watching this, like there are people in this world that don't have choice in certain situations, I realized I had a lot of choice. It just was a hard choice. It was a very difficult choice. But I still had a choice. There's a difference between a hard choice and no choice. And when I realized I had that choice and it was my responsibility to make that decision, to save myself, to decide what I wanna do, that's when I finally decided to like actually do something. And so I wanna talk to you about that more today because I want you to really understand this concept beyond just like, well of course like you can take action.
I want you to know like when I say responsibility or taking control of your life, again, I don't mean that any of it is your fault. There is a very big difference between responsibility and fault. I'm gonna give you an analogy to kind of help me describe this. If you are walking along the sidewalk, okay, let's just say you're just on your merry way and a truck jumps the curb and hits you, okay? And you break a ton of bones and you are badly injured, right? And you can't walk at this point whatnot. A lot of your body has been damaged. It's clearly not your fault, right? It's clearly the truck driver's fault. We can all agree to that. It's not fair at all that that happened to you. It is very tragic. It's likely very traumatic. It is still your responsibility to do the pt, all of the rehabilitation that you have to do in order to be able to walk again, it is painful rehabilitation, it's not fair.
And yet you're allowed to like lay up in the hospital bed and be mad at the world and be angry and say that you're not gonna do it because you shouldn't have to endure more pain. And you're right, you shouldn't have to. But then you don't get to walk or you get to walk with a lot of pain or you get to walk with a limp or whatever it might be. Or you get to decide, okay, this is the circumstance. This is what's happened, this is what is, this is the hand that I was dealt. It's not fair at all. But what do I want to do with it from here, right? Is it in my best interest to do this painful PT for the next year so that I can walk again for the rest of my life? It's still my responsibility. And so when I say that, I don't mean that bad things don't happen to you.
They do. They likely have. There's a reason so many of us react the way that we do. It's the traumas that we've, you know, received since we were children. And it's not to blame any of us. I actually think like you can take responsibility with so much compassion for yourself. And it's not to say that sometimes we don't wanna kind of have a pity party or blame other people. I do it all the time. I highly recommend it in short spurts. You absolutely get to do that too. But you have to understand ultimately if you want things to change, then you have to change 'em in your own life. All of the things that you think happen in the world do happen. I'm not saying there's racism, there's abuse, there's trauma, there's all of that stuff is real. Now what? We live in a world that that is there and you've been dealt this hand and it's not fair.
And for some of us it's deeply unfair. I don't know why some people have to deal with so much unfairness and other people don't. But it's just the way it is. And you still get a choice. You still get a choice for how to react to it. You still get a choice of what you do from that point on, you still get a choice of how you treat yourself with how much compassion and how much love you still get a choice with. Like how much time you give yourself to be able to deal with things. That is where your control comes in. That is where your agency comes in. And I think whether we're talking about it like with career or with family or relationships, I want you to simply just look at like where am I being a passive participant in my life? Where am I just letting it happen to me?
I hear so many people tell me the words I can't about things that they absolutely can't. I can't quit. No, you don't want to. 'cause it's hard because then you have to look for another job or you have to figure out how to replace your income. And for a lot of people, you would be able to do that. Maybe you have to take a pay cut, maybe you have to move back with your family. Maybe you have to get a roommate, maybe you have to downsize, you have to move to a different state. I don't know. But push comes to shove. You could, like if you got laid off, you'd have to figure it out. You could. You don't want to. And that's okay. It's okay to say I don't want to, it's okay to say like right now, it's not the best time for me to do that because X, Y, and Z right now I'm setting myself up to maybe be able to quit without all the stress in a couple of years, right?
Right now I'm paying off debt. That's great, that's fine. That's having a plan for so many of us that think we're stuck is because we have this belief of I want to, but I can't. I'm, you know, stuck. Something is holding me here and that's just not true. I hear so many people say like I can't set boundaries. I can't say no to this person. I can't say no to my mom. I can't move to another state. I can't break up with this person. I can't end this relationship. Yes you can. Yes you can. You can do all of those things. You are an adult. You can do whatever you want. You can burn your whole life to the ground if you want to. And if you don't want to, that's totally fine. But let's not lie to ourselves. Let's not tell ourselves that we can't when we can't.
I know I'm like sort of ranting at you and yelling at you. And it comes from love because I think that when you understand this, like the first step of really understanding this concept and understanding that like I am choosing one thing because in whatever way it is serving me, it is easier for me. It's easier than having to do the uncomfortable thing. It's easier to not have the difficult conversations. It's easier to not cut this person outta my life. 'cause then I don't have to deal with the drama. It's easier in the moment in some way. And so I am choosing it. And I just want you to choose it consciously. I want you to choose it actively. I want you to ask yourself the question, if I had to do it again, would I choose it again? And if the answer is no, then do something different.
If you wouldn't choose this career again, if you wouldn't choose this profession again, if you wouldn't choose this job again, if you wouldn't choose this spouse again, do something different. You can still make a change. And that's like a really interesting way to get yourself to um, really see what you truly desire, right? To get yourself to understand like, I don't actually want this, but I'm choosing to stay here for a number of reasons. Now, if you can, once you decide like I wouldn't choose this again, it doesn't mean that you have to end things or change things, right? Then nobody's saying that you have to like burn all bridges and decide. But you can start really questioning, okay, what do I control here? What do I want to do from here? If I wouldn't choose this profession again, what are the things that I control while I'm here?
Can I start creating a plan? Can I start deciding what I wanna do in two years, three years, five years? Why am I staying? Can I get to the bottom of that first? What is it that I'm afraid of, right? Why do I think I need to stay? When you start going through these exercises of really understanding why am I here and what do I control here? Maybe if I have to stay for a little while longer, I can decide like, okay, I'm gonna choose to stay. I'm choosing to stay in this profession because it pays my bills, it gives me the stability I need. I'm paying off debt, I'm gonna network. I'm gonna build up my resume. Okay? I can get super conscious of that and know that for the short term, the next year or two, I'm gonna stay here and I'm gonna get the most out of it.
I'm still gonna take control of my job here. Instead of I'm just gonna and complain. I'm gonna hate being here every day. I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna complain about it at home. I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna like drag my way through the week. I'm gonna drink all weekend so that I don't have to deal with it. Notice the difference. It's not that you have to quit the job, it's just that you have to start really figuring out like what is it that I actually want and how do I create that for my life and how do I take that responsibility and it, when I say this, again, I think sometimes when we use this like a hundred percent responsibility, these these concepts, we can use it against ourselves to think that we always have to be doing more or we always have to be doing bigger.
You know, that's not what I'm trying to say. 'cause sometimes responsibility might be like if I'm taking responsibility for my body and for my mental health and for my wellness, that might mean I have to take a step back. That might mean I need to rest more. That might mean I have to say no so that I have time For me, that might mean that like I have to let other people down so that I stop letting myself down. That's still also taking control, that's still taking responsibility. It's not to say that I have to just start setting bigger goals and accomplishing more and starting the has hide hustle. It's simply looking at this is my one life that I get. What do I want from it? What do I wanna do with it? What am I doing now? What is working, what is not?
What do I control? Where can I go from here? Where do I wanna go from here? What does the next couple of years look like? Like it's asking these intentional questions to get yourself to start really consciously thinking about your life instead of just letting it happen to you instead of feeling helpless and thinking like, well, there's nothing I can do. I already picked this major and now I'm in this job and it pays kind of well and I'm kind of stuck and I have a mortgage and I have kids and so there's nothing else I can do. That's just the biggest lie that we tell ourselves. And maybe for some of us it's gonna be harder than others. Maybe for some of us, like someone can quit within six months. Someone's gonna take three years, somebody is gonna stay for five. Okay, 10. Okay, your situation is different.
Totally agreed. And yet you still have so much more control than you think. And so I want you to really take some time. This doesn't mean you have to like change anything right now. I want you to really think about if I take control of this one life that I have, if I start like really assessing where am I giving up some of that control? Where do I think that I can't change? Where do I think that I'm stuck? Just start there. Start journaling on that, write that down and then start asking yourself. But what do I control in those situations? What could I do? What are some options? You don't even have to take the options. If you think, let's say you're stuck in your career, I want you to write down three things that you could do to get out of it today.
Like if you were, you know, hopefully this isn't your situation, but let's say you were laid off, what would you do? Because it's really important for you to just show your brain evidence of like, oh, I could figure this out. There are other things I could do. I may not choose to do those 'cause it's not the smartest thing to do, or it's not the best thing for me right now and I can stay here. But I have to start getting into the habit of showing myself there is another way and I have control. Responsibility is the ability to respond. It doesn't mean that we, you know, control everything that happens to us. It doesn't mean that we control how other people act or what's gonna, you know, randomly gonna happen like covid and we're gonna go into lockdown. Like nobody controlled that. But I do get to control how you respond to it.
Some people responded by taking care of themselves, working on their health, starting a side hustle, working from home, and some people responded in different ways. Again, no judgment. That doesn't have to be like any like beating yourself up for it. But it's simply understanding like if I have an ability to respond to everything that happens to me, how do I want to respond? All right? So I want you to start thinking about what you control exactly where you are and how you can start changing it. Because this is like the crucial piece to whether you wanna end your burnout, whether you want to change your career, you want to build a business, whether you want advancements, you wanna make more money, you want to ask for a raise. All of it starts from you really understanding how much control you actually have and stop being like a passive observer of your life and deciding to take action over and over again, even when you fail, even when it doesn't work, even when the circumstances are hard.
So if we're gonna start building that career, if we're gonna stop giving into the rat race and we're gonna stop the madness that is corporate America, then we have to get into that driver's seat and we have to decide like, where am I going? Where is this all going? Where do I wanna go? I have to ask these tough questions that are hard to answer. And if you want help answering them, that is exactly what I do in my membership. The Quitter Club, which we will be opening doors on September 10th for a week with the best price that you're gonna get all year. So if you're interested in getting help with this, if you wanna start taking control and taking full responsibility, uh, look out for that on September 10th and come to the masterclass. Quit the Rat Race. You can go to quitterclub.com/masterclass. I hope to see you there.

Hey, if you are looking for more in-depth help with your career, whether that's dealing with all of the stress, worry, and anxiety that's leading to burnout in your current career or figuring out what your dream career is and actually going after it, I want you to join me in the Quitter Club. It is where we quit what is no longer working like perfectionism, people pleasing imposter syndrome, and we start working on what does, and we start taking action towards the career and the life that you actually want. We will take the concepts that we talk about on the podcast and apply them to your life, and you will get the coaching tools and support that you need to actually make some real change. So go to lessonsfromaquitter.com/quitterclub and get on the wait list. Doors are closed right now, but they will be open soon.