Waiting for a Reason
Reading. The work stopped mattering. You are staying without a reason.
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 Meaning. You cannot easily say what your work is for, the work itself stopped mattering to you some time ago, and few weeks end with something you are glad you did. This test calls that Waiting for a Reason. You are held less by the money or by fear than by the absence of anything worth staying for, or anything clear enough to leave for.
This is the reading behind a lot of searches for do I hate my job. Often the honest answer is not hate. It is emptiness. The job works. It pays. Nobody is unkind. It is simply not for anything you care about any more, and you are waiting for a change that nobody has been asked to make.
Waiting feels safe, and it is not neutral. Every month you wait, the job teaches you to expect less from work, and the longer that goes on, the harder it is to name what you want.
Two things can end the wait. A reason inside this job: a piece of work, a team or a problem that would matter to you, which you ask for out loud. Or a reason outside it, which you go and look for on purpose rather than waiting for it to arrive. Both start with the same question. What would you lead if money were not the reason?
What to do this week. Write down the last three pieces of work, anywhere in your life, that you were glad you did. Look for what they share. Then ask your manager for one piece of work next quarter that has that in it. If the answer is no, or there is nothing like it here, you have found your reason to look elsewhere.
The free leadership style quiz shows what kind of leading would matter to you.
What to do with this result
If you do not manage people
Your next one on one. Ask for one piece of work, not a new job: is there a problem next quarter that nobody owns yet? I would like to take it. It is the smallest test of whether a reason can be found here.
The three columns. Leave, if you have asked for work that matters to you and there is none here to give. Stay and act, if one piece of work would bring the reason back. Stay and wait, if a change that would bring it, such as a new team or a new role, is already scheduled. Write down your column and a date to check it.
The free leadership style quiz shows what kind of leading would matter to you.
If you manage people
Your team could answer these twelve statements about their own jobs, and Meaning is the reading a manager has most direct influence over. People wait for a reason when nobody tells them what their work is for. Say it, for each person, in one sentence: what their work makes possible, and for whom.
If you are waiting for a reason yourself, your team can feel it. The leader burnout test separates a lost reason from depletion, and the 1:1 meeting builder helps you ask your people what would matter to them.
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 you are leaving because the reason is gone, write down what the new venture is for before you write the plan. A reason you can say in one sentence carries you through the months the arithmetic does not cover. 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.
- Afraid to LeaveFear and thin options hold you most. Measure them before deciding.
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.