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Deciding to Leave Higher Ed: Strategies for Career Discernment

Filed Under: Contemplative Practices, Higher Education By Beth Godbee October 10, 2018 3 Comments

Today the next installment in “Outside Higher Ed” appears in Inside Higher Ed, focusing on career discernment:

This hyperlinked screenshot shows the article (black text against a white background) as it appears in Inside Higher Ed.

As the title promises, this piece shares seven steps for career discernment. These include:

  1. Talking with confidants.
  2. Making lists, and writing to learn.
  3. Pairing downside with upside risks.
  4. Finding my “strong yes.”
  5. Taking steps toward a new career.
  6. Seeking a reality check.
  7. Processing grief and other emotions.

For each, I describe how the strategy played a role in my decision to leave academia, a discernment process that stretched over multiple years.

Whether or not you’ve been following along as I’ve shared my decision to transition into public writing and entrepreneurship, I hope this piece offers useful discernment practices.

Through career discernment, I continue to learn the importance of slowing down, listening to embodied wisdom, and building emotional literacies. Decision-making involves more than well-reasoned answers, and it holds potential for healing when prioritizing commitments and alignment with our better/best selves.

I continue to wish for personal and collective healing and believe our working lives play a role in this process. How might our careers—and ongoing career discernment—contribute to grieving and growing? To greater acknowledgement of both/and? To the willingness to tread alternative paths?

Update: You can now listen to article (and others on career discernment) read by the author. Click the video below, or navigate over to the YouTube channel for Heart-Head-Hands: Everyday Living for Justice. Thanks! ~ Beth

—
This post is written by Beth Godbee for Heart-Head-Hands.com. For more posts like this one, you might try “Announcing ‘Outside Higher Ed’ in Inside Higher Ed,” “In the Midst of Big Changes,” or “Listening for/to the ‘Strong YES.’” You might also like the e-course “Career Discernment for Academics: Aligning Career with Commitments.”

If you appreciate this site, if you connect with the storytelling, or if you use any of the recipes or resources, consider making a one-time or sustaining donation and liking this blog on FB. Thanks!

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Tagged with: career discernment, commitments, emotional literacies, healing, resistance, storytelling, writing

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Comments

  1. tiffanymarquisejones

    October 10, 2018 at 6:53 pm

    Loved every bit of this article, esp. useful as I’m exploring my own fears, trauma, and grief; finding my “both/ and” life and “strong yeses; and observing my emotions throughout the process. Thanks for such reflective writing and advice!

    Reply
    • Beth Godbee

      October 11, 2018 at 1:12 am

      Tiffany, thanks for sharing what resonates, and thanks for sharing your research journal via blogging. I’m so glad to connect here (online) and in-person (yeah for ATL and DC). May we keep learning about how to live in alignment with “both/and” and “strong yeses.” Hugs.

      Reply

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About Beth Godbee

I'm an educator and former writing studies professor who believes our fully embodied selves matter in the world. We can’t just think our way out of the incredible injustices, dehumanization, violence, and wrongdoing that characterize everyday life. We must feel and act, too. [Pronouns: she/her.] Read more ...

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