Afraid to Leave
Reading. Fear and thin options hold you most. Measure them before deciding.
This test sorts what is keeping you where you are. It is not financial advice; the runway arithmetic in the worksheet uses your numbers and should be checked with someone qualified. It does not know your health, your family or your contract, and it does not tell you to leave.
Your tightest hold is Fear and options. The clock, the title or the market worries you more than the job does, and your runway, your skills or your network would not carry you far outside this company yet. This test calls that Afraid to Leave. Fear is not weakness. It is information, and some of it is accurate.
Separate the two halves before you do anything. Fear is the feeling: starting again costs too much at your stage, people will see you differently without the title, the market is worse than it is. Options are the facts: how many months you could cover, whether your skills are worth as much outside, whether anyone outside would vouch for you. Look at your Fear and Optionality bars. If your Fear bar is lower, the feeling is bigger than the facts. If Optionality is lower, the fear is pointing at something real, and that is something you can fix.
Options can be built while you stay. Runway grows with every month you save. Skills travel further when someone outside the company has seen them. A network is built one conversation at a time, and it is built best before you need it.
What to do this week. Measure one fact the fear is guessing at. Work out how many months of costs you could cover if your income stopped, as plain arithmetic: savings divided by monthly costs. Or have one conversation with someone outside your company about what your skills are worth there. One fact will not decide anything. It will shrink the fear to its real size.
Then ask the question this test is built around. What would you lead if money, and fear, were not the reason? If the answer is a different job, the should I quit my job quiz separates what you would be leaving.
What to do with this result
If you do not manage people
Your next one on one. Ask for something that builds options while you stay: I would like to present this work to the wider business, or to work with the team on the other side of it. Visibility outside your own team is the cheapest option you can build.
The three columns. Leave, once you have measured your runway and the facts are better than the fear. Stay and act, if you can build runway, skills or network here over the next six months. Stay and wait, if you are waiting for a date you can name, and you have written it down.
The free leadership style quiz shows the strengths you would carry anywhere.
If you manage people
Fear keeps people quiet, and quiet people do not tell their manager what is wrong. If some of your team would read Afraid to Leave, you will hear about it last. The fix is not reassurance. It is making options visible: skills they can build here, people outside the team who see their work, a clear view of where they could go next.
Ask each person what they want to be able to do in two years that they cannot do now. The 1:1 meeting builder structures the conversation, and the psychological safety scale shows whether your team can say the hard thing to you.
If you are leaving to start or run something
The runway rule, as arithmetic. Before you resign, divide the savings you are prepared to spend by your monthly costs, including the new costs the venture adds. That is your runway in months. Then write down how many months you expect before the new thing pays you. If the first number is smaller than the second, you know what has to change before the letter goes in. This is arithmetic with your own numbers, not financial advice; check it with someone qualified.
If fear is your tightest hold, the arithmetic is your best ally: fear guesses, and the numbers do not. Do the sum before you decide, not after. If you want peers for the move, the CEO Mastermind is a peer group for CEOs, and the executive coaching cost index sets out what one to one coaching costs, with sources.
Next step
The other results
- Free to ChooseNothing holds you tight. Staying or going is a real choice.
- Paid to StayThe number holds you most. Decide what it is buying you.
- Waiting for a ReasonThe work stopped mattering. You are staying without a reason.
About this result
This is one of 4 results from the Golden Handcuffs Test: is it the money, or the fear, a free tool that shows the score without an email. Aggregate figures are at the statistics page once 30 completions have been reached. More free tools are at the tools shelf.