The right sort of hesitation

When facing a big choice, it’s natural to be scared.

Meaningful changes bring real risks. Recently I have been holding back from committing to leaving my current job, and I have been asking myself, is this healthy caution or putting off the inevitable?

As a change manger and coach, one of the tools I use to consider people’s readiness to change is known as ADKAR. And recently I have been thinking about where I am on this framework.

The first step is awareness of the need to change, and this one I am very clear about. I need more freedom and more room to grow.

Second comes desire to change and again this one is strong for me right now, I have a clear idea of what I would like to try and am feeling motivated to move towards it.

After that, knowledge of how to change. This is an interesting one because information paralysis is real. There’s always more to be learned, but if you stay in this stage you can get very stuck and never act. I feel I have a good idea of the basics I need to get started, and will learn the rest as I go along.

Fourth is ability to implement the new skills or behaviours. This is the stage I need to work on just now. One of the limitations stopping me moving forward is lack of time right now – working full time while managing other responsibilities doesn’t leave much time for starting a new career. So that would argue for stopping work as soon as possible. But I also have to finish my personal training qualification, which will take a few more months. And my ability to work as a PT is a little hampered at the moment by my frozen shoulder, which again will take a bit of time to recover.

The fifth and final stage is reinforcement of the change. The coaching course I am doing at the moment provides some of that, but I need to lay the groundwork for this by continuing to build my network and planning to make sure that, when I do make the change, I have the support and encouragement necessary to keep going.

Using this model makes it clear that there are some factors which make a delay sensible, and gives me a clear sense of what I need to do to move forward. Not excessive caution, just doing things in a sensible order. Not paralysis, but preparation.

Where are you on this scale? And what is the next step to move you forward?