Another Kind of "Dip"

June 22, 2007

There has been a lot of talk lately about Seth Godin’s new book, The Dip, and even some discussion on whether or not you can teach someone the business skills that allow them to know when to quit. But today I want to talk about a different kind of quitting—one that involves a change in your life plan. As it is with your business and career, knowing when to change your life plan is important to your long-term success.

When I came out of college, it was the beginning of the dot-bomb time. One minute I was riding high with a great job, and the next I was hanging out with all of my other unemployed friends and watching cartoons from Laid Off Land. At one point, I had gone through four jobs in a single year due to layoffs. The significance, however, is not which jobs I held or what happened to those companies, but that I recognized the dip. When my days were measured in a countdown to when I assumed I’d be laid off again, it was time for a change in the life plan. This pattern would repeat itself several times in the years since I have been out of college, as my life has changed courses several times.

What is important about this little story is that I saw the lull coming and had to make the decision whether it was time to find something just like before, or it was time to move on to something else. When the dot-bomb got old, I went back to my degree and worked with animals. When I met my current husband and needed more of a job than just “getting by”, I went back to marketing. When I got tired of working in an office, I found a fun but well-paying job where I had a lot of fresh air and independence. When it came time to settle down and get married, I chose to return to my marketing roots and launch a company that would allow me the flexibility to raise our insanely smart daughter. Gone are the days of 80-hour weeks where I would eat 3 meals a day at my desk, and where the bartenders at every pub within 10 miles of my current employment knew my name because that’s where I ate dinner at 9 pm every night. I’m someone’s mother now, someone’s wife, and a business owner with employees. While my current company has had a few dips of its own, I feel as though I can manage and overcome these because my current life plan is the right path for me.

I am thankful for the opportunities I was given to change my life plan when my path took a new turn. I can’t imagine the path my life would have taken had I stayed on the course I had been pursuing straight out of college. So it is important to not only recognize the dip in your business life and career—that moment when you should decide to either hammer through to get results or to quit and move on to another venture—but also the dips in your own life which you should embrace and evaluate as they come.

Just make sure that your life plan is a living, breathing guideline—and not a path set in stone.

Questions for our Readers

Do you have a life plan? If so, does it help or hinder you when a dip shows up in your life?

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Comments

One Response to “Another Kind of "Dip"”

steve on June 23rd, 2007 7:38 pm

my life plan is to be just like you Nikole. dippity do !

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