A colleague called me while I was sitting in a Walgreens parking lot, waiting on a prescription for one of my kids. We had known each other for years and worked closely together. She knew I had left a full-time clinical career for medical education.
In all that time, she had never once called to ask my opinion.
She wanted to know whether she should apply for a position that would completely change her role and take her off the path she had been on for years. She is one of the most driven, goal-focused people I know. Motivation was never her problem. But the way she asked did not sound like someone weighing a decision. It sounded like someone asking permission.
So I did not give her my opinion. I asked more questions. And somewhere in the answering, she talked her way to the decision. She already had it. I was not the one who found it.
In fifteen minutes I watched her move from wanting something bigger to seeing that she was already in the right place. The prize was being wanted, and being chosen. It was not worth what she would have had to give up. She had stopped seeing how good she already had it.
I notice it everywhere now. When someone asks for my opinion, on something small or something enormous, I am glad to be asked, and it is almost never my opinion they want. We ask for opinions to get validation. Think about how it feels when you ask someone what they think and they disagree with you. We go find someone else. And when we finally hear the answer we were looking for, we give it all the weight in the world, even if it is the only voice saying it.
Then the part that took me longer to admit. When I was deciding to leave full-time clinical medicine, I asked my colleagues what they thought. I told myself I was gathering input. I was asking for permission.
So here is the one thing to do this week.
What to do with it
Before you ask another person what they think, write down the sentence you have not said out loud.
One line. No hedging. Not “maybe I should think about eventually looking into.” The actual sentence.
Then answer three questions underneath it.
- Who, if anyone, have you said it to?
- What would change tomorrow if you said it out loud?
- What are you afraid it would cost?
Keep the page. You are going to want it again in eleven weeks.
If you want a structure for the larger version of this, the Pivot Decision Framework runs one decision across four dimensions: values alignment, practical feasibility, identity fit, and regret minimization. It is free, and it lives with the rest of my worksheets at laurenfine.com.
The coach's view
Most people open with “should I quit?” That is a decision question and it arrives far too early. A coach asks something smaller first. What exactly is intolerable, and is it the work itself or the conditions around it? Those two answers lead to completely different plans.
Worth your time
01 · Listen
How Do You Know When It's Time to Quit?
No Stupid Questions, episode 29. The author of Grit working out when persistence stops being a virtue.
Listen to the episode02 · Read
The Crossroads of Should and Must
Elle Luna. Ten minutes on the gap between what you should do and what you want.
Read the essay03 · Do
Say it out loud, then delete it
Record the sentence as a voice memo. Play it back once. Then delete it. Nobody to agree with you, nobody to talk you out of it.
Now tell me where you are. Just hit reply, or email me. I read every one.
