Why I Quit My Job

It’s been a week full of excitement and reflection since I departed from Google after 18 years. It was a huge decision, and I've been thinking a lot about the journey that brought me here. I'm ready to share more of my story, including what led to my decision and what’s on the horizon. For a more concise story, see my previous post, which included my farewell email to Google colleagues.

Why I left

Pursuing Coaching and Fulfillment

My primary reason was to pursue coaching. My first experience working with a coach actually led me to apply for a job at Google, and over the course of my Google career, being a people manager and participating in leadership development programs allowed me to engage with a variety of internal and external coaches. Coaching had such a profound impact on my professional and personal development that I wanted to learn how to coach, so I researched training programs and started a virtual program with Erickson International in March 2022. 

At the same time, I joined Google’s internal coaching program and went through the introductory training. A year later I completed the requirements to earn my certification. I continued to coach internally, and took on a few individual and corporate clients. As I gained experience and developed my skills, I also found that my love for coaching never wavered. For a while, I worked an 80% schedule and dedicated my Fridays to writing and developing my coaching practice, but when I changed roles internally, I switched back to working full time.

Then in late 2023, I took a leave of absence to recover from severe burnout. When I returned to work early last year, I set more boundaries to protect my autonomy and mental health. I was grateful that no one held my leave against me, and I was able to build a new team with a stellar group of senior TPMs and program managers afterwards. I continued coaching and mentoring internally, and served as an executive sponsor for community programs that were personally meaningful. Later in the year I hired another small team for a pilot and helped to kick off a large-scale AI program. 

Despite these positive developments, I couldn't shake the underlying feeling that this was no longer what I wanted. On paper, my job situation was ideal, but my heart wasn’t completely in it. I had changed so much that I no longer felt like a program manager.

Investing Time in My Future

I knew that I wanted to coach more; I didn't know if becoming a self-employed coach was the right approach for me and if I could earn enough to support my family that way. I was aware of other options, but didn’t have the time or energy to explore them while working full-time. I needed more time and space to figure things out.

I had been planning to wait until my kids were finished with high school to pursue coaching, and had even worked with a financial planner to model that scenario for several years in the future. During a conversation with my husband, I realized that if I really succeeded as a coach and found a way to thrive, I would regret delaying my pursuit. Life is too short and unpredictable to keep putting off my dream.

Taking a Break

Then there was the chance to take a break from work. I had always envied peers who took a gap year, but somehow a few decades passed with no extended time off aside from parental leaves, neither of which were restful. Similarly, I was excited by the thought of discovering my identity outside of Google. While it’s still a unique and special place to work, it’s not for everyone and not the end-all be-all.

Seeking Flexibility

The final factor was the chance to have more flexibility in my schedule for my family. My kids are in 6th grade and 9th grade, key transitional years in school full of new challenges, and our oldest will be done with high school in a few short years. As the breadwinner, I often prioritized work and was lucky to have a partner who took charge at home, so I wanted to be more available.

Even though I knew I wanted to leave, it still was a major life decision that would affect my entire family, so I didn’t take it lightly. The main factors that went into my decision were lifestyle, finances, and mindset.

How I decided

While some people told me how courageous I was to resign without another job lined up, I wasn’t afraid of the uncertainty ahead of me. I think it’s because I enjoy change and variety, and am a pretty risk tolerant person. As an Enneagram 7, the Enthusiast, I tend to make decisions quickly and instinctively, sometimes impulsively. Enneagram 7s are known for their love of variety and aversion to being limited. In fact, I’ve left jobs and teams that I really liked before, because I lacked a sense of purpose, couldn’t envision a path forward in the role, or was ready to move on to another career. 

I left my first job at a large multinational corporation after a few years to work at a small 40-person company. The corporate job gave me great training and the opportunity to travel all over the world, yet I felt like a cog in the wheel. It wasn’t a smooth ride adapting to the new role – I almost got fired – but things eventually settled. With this experience, I already had some confidence in being able to bounce back from adversity.

However, that was also many years ago when I was single and childless. Now the stakes were higher for me as a parent and breadwinner for my family. Once I got the idea in my head that it might be time to move on, I asked myself what it would take to feel secure without a steady paycheck. In true nerdy program manager fashion, I created a spreadsheet for my planning and calculations.

Finances and Lifestyle

First, I knew that my natural tendency would be to drastically cut household expenses by eliminating non-essential spending. At the same time, I felt that a scarcity mindset would not serve me well during this phase, so I decided to pay myself the equivalent of my take-home salary after quitting, except that the pay would be coming from savings. I got past my aversion to creating a monthly budget and factored in upcoming large expenditures, like braces for our younger son and an upcoming family vacation. I was keen to avoid sudden, drastic lifestyle changes and having to make other major life decisions, so I researched the costs of keeping our current health insurance with COBRA for the near term.

I gave myself a year to figure things out, including no pressure to be productive at all for the first three months. I rounded up the monthly budget to account for other expenses I might have overlooked, and then rounded up some more for good measure. After crunching the numbers, I felt comfortable that we had enough savings to cover a year without income, confirming with a financial planner just in case. And yes, I recognize the privilege of having an emergency fund.

Mindset

With that out of the way, I could set aside worry to embrace an abundance mindset. Leaving the corporate world now didn’t have to be a permanent departure. Thanks to the hard work I did to recover from burnout, I had regained my confidence and self-esteem. If coaching didn’t work out for me, I had options, including returning to Google or seeking another job. 

The current economic climate and turmoil are certainly disconcerting. Hard work, determination, and luck have gotten me this far and I choose not to let fear lead my decisions.

What’s next?

While I have no idea what I’ll be doing one year from now, the moment I knew that I would be moving on from my job, I felt light and inspired. I filled my spreadsheet with ideas about all the things I would have time to do. I wanted to exercise my creative brain and rekindle old hobbies I’d given up because I was never going to be great at them – singing, writing, and making art – for my sheer enjoyment. I get to indulge my lifelong love of reading and tackle the stacks of novels and nonfiction books on my counter that I’ve been eager to explore.

I’ve already started filling my schedule with coaching, planning workshops, attending webinars, networking, and joining the board of a non-profit organization. I applied to a yoga teaching intern program. I enjoyed a leisurely coastal bike ride with my husband and a relaxing Thai massage. To maintain some structure in my life, I still get up early before the rest of my family, starting my day with silence and solitude and getting in my workout and yoga.

To manage my tendency to over-extend and maintain accountability during my initial three months, I’m approaching new activities as experiments, tracked in my spreadsheet. Each must have a hypothesis or purpose, and if I find that they are not meeting my needs, I’ll end the experiment.

Longer term, I’ll be on a journey of discovery and exploration to figure out my next career or – more likely – career portfolio.

Now that I’m on the other side, the most challenging aspect has been parting ways with the exceptional folks I worked with at Google. I know that my decision made some people sad, but also that they were happy for me. I’m only one week in, but I am full of gratitude, hope, and excitement for the future. Stay tuned for updates on my journey and a series of personal stories and lessons from my career so far!