How Do You Know if You are Ready to Quit or Need to Grow?

In this solo episode, Erin breaks down the real reason most senior living leaders quit too soon, and how to tell if you’re facing a Dip, a Cliff, or a Cul-de-Sac (inspired by Seth Godin’s The Dip).

She shares the 4 Emotional Phases every Executive Director goes through, the mindset traps that keep you stuck, and 3 powerful questions to ask before you hand in your resignation.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed, underappreciated, or ready to run, this conversation will help you decide when to stay, when to grow, and when to walk away wisely.

 Key Takeaways:

• The 4 Emotional Phases of senior living leadership (and where you are now)
• How the messy middle can make or break your career
• The difference between quitting for relief and quitting for strategy
• 3 clarity questions to ask before you quit
• Why finishing is rarer, and more rewarding, than starting

 Connect with Erin:
Ready to get the support you need to grow through the dip? Connect with Erin at Aspire For More with Erin or visit The Mentoring Company.

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Transcript

0:36

Okay. Today we're gonna have a tough conversation, I think a fun conversation, but I wanna remind you, I'm Erin Thompson, and I get it. I'm your person who gets it. So let's start there. I am your friend. I am your person who gets it. let me help you be honest with yourself with some questions. Have you ever thought about quitting? Not once, but on one of those days when you whispered to yourself, why am I even doing this? Why am I doing this right? Like, how many times have we had that question? if you are in senior living leadership, I know you've said those words to yourself. Why? Because I have said those words to myself. I have been there too, and I said those words to myself in times where I probably shouldn't have. And that's what we're gonna go over today. Today I am unpacking the four emotional phases every executive director faces and the timeless wisdom from a new book that I read, which is really what inspired this episode and my content on LinkedIn this week called The Dip. It's written by Seth Godin, and it's really more about a marketing, strategy and for, business owners. But it makes perfect sense in senior living as well, especially for those of us who constantly say, why am I doing this? Because when you know exactly when to push through and when to walk away and when to give yourself some grace and when to tell yourself, those words are just panic, then you can grow confidence. You can walk through the four emotional phases of senior living leadership with confidence, and you no longer have to stay stuck in the messy middle or the dip. So if you're there, this episode's for you, again, I just wanna remind you, I am Erin. I am your person who gets it. I have been there. I have done that. And I am better for it, and that's why I'm talking about it today. Senior living leadership is like running a five star hotel, a hospital, a family drama series, and a multimillion dollar business all at once. I mean. Have truer words ever been spoken. Nobody tells you that when you're being interviewed, but it's true. That's what it feels like. So here's what I want you to take away today after listening to this episode. Quitting isn't always bad, But quitting for the wrong reasons. That is a career killer. Almost everything worthwhile comes with a dip. That means that everything worthwhile is uphill because you start here, you go down here, and then you come up here. That's the ugly valley between your excitement and your expertise. In order to become the expert, you have to survive the dip, the valley, the messy middle. If you know how to handle the dip, the valley, the messy middle, you can become unstoppable. And that's my goal for you today. So let's break it down. I love this quote that's from John Maxwell. The dream is free. It's the journey that will cost you. Let's just think about that. We walk into a community with our new fancy title. Whatever it is, whatever your title is, the regional director, the executive director, the nursing director, the activities director, whatever your title is, when you walk in on that first day, you have hopeful enthusiasm. That's what you have. I got this. I'm gonna turn this thing around by whatever day, six months from now. Hopeful enthusiasm is that beginning of every relationship, personal relationship, professional relationship. It's where it's fun, it's exciting, it's fast paced, you are so aware of the opportunities and the potential that is before you. Nothing is going to get in your way. There's quick wins, quick feedback, and your curiosity is on fire because everything is new. The passion that you feel is there, it hasn't been tainted, right? Like you are ready to take this opportunity and turn it into the biggest win of your career. That's hopeful. Enthusiasm. At the beginning of every relationship you have is hopeful enthusiasm, but it is inevitable that you are going to run into the next phase, which is the reality check. It's the beginning of the dip. It's, wait a minute, this isn't exactly what I thought it was going to be. It's the moment the honeymoon ends. It's the moment that your passion gets tested. It's the moment that you realize this is going to be harder than I thought. I mean, how many times have we seen our kids go into something and think this is going to be a breeze, and we know that it's not going to be a breeze because it's inevitable. We're going to run into the time that we have to learn and grow, that we have to realize it's not going to be perfect. This is the reality check phase. The reality check phase for senior living leadership is when budgets are now being enforced and looked at when repeated call offs are causing those budgets to be over and you can't catch up every key stakeholder, families, corporate office, the regulators, the associates, the residents, they're all getting angry about something and you're having to try to figure out what the pattern is, and then there are the regulations that you didn't even know that you didn't know. When that happens to you, that's a huge reality check, right? here is, when your big vision, the big plan that you have starts becoming buried by all of the small fires that are brewing. I wanted to say to you, if you were in this reality check phase communication is where most of these fires start and can be extinguished. It's communication period. Especially if you are in the phase where you have management turnover and you are having to work two to three jobs at one time. I certainly have done that. It is hard, but there's a lot of value in having to do that. Now, we could say that this would be the dip if you have management turnover. But there's so much value in learning the role of a manager, so you can support the next one in such a profound and impactful way. But this is the reality check phase. This is when we realize life is always harder than we think it's going to be. And when we started asking ourselves these questions like, wait a minute, what happened? Did I miss something? Clearly there's something going on that I'm not aware of. Or even worse, am I even cut out for this? Is this the community for me? Is this the company for me? Am I enough? This is the first sign that you're entering the dip, and the dip is the inevitable valley between starting and mastering between your excitement and your expertise. The dip is worth it, but only if you know why it's worth it. This is where the quote, everything worthwhile is uphill. Makes perfect sense. We started out with hopeful enthusiasm, complete blind passion. This is gonna be the best thing ever. And then we hit reality and we realize, oh. It's gonna take a little bit more effort or a lot more effort than I thought. And here is the crossroads phase. This is where most people realize they're at and decide, this isn't for me. This is the gut check phase, the messy middle, the valley of despair, whatever you wanna call it. This is the crossroads phase. Almost everything worth doing. Requires a dip. Think about riding a bike. It required a learning curve. The dip is the learning curve For me, learning how to do this podcast, if you walk into a community and your occupancy is very low, the dip is going to be the occupancy growth. It's hard, but there's so much value in the journey that you want to continue. The dip, the valley of despair. This is where extraordinary benefits accrue to the tiny minority who push through just a bit longer than most. It's that time in the book. The author Seth Godin talks about like if we're at the grocery store line and we're constantly surveying what line is the shortest, and if we are in a longer line, we move to the next line. But you know what happens when we move from a long line to a shorter line and it takes longer than we actually thought? to go through that short line, because you know, that's happened to all of us, is we don't get the credit. For the time spent waiting in the previous line. And if we constantly move because the struggle is real'cause the valley of despair is too deep, because the messy middle is too messy, we don't move forward in the progress of our life. We don't get credit for the work at other places. And that's why the crossroads phase of senior living leadership is very important. Because what do we want? Is the short-term discomfort not worth the long-term benefits? I think that's a question that we, I have to ask ourselves because the crossroads is where we gain the most in our life. The valley of despair, the messy middle, that embracing of discomfort, there's value in that as long as you know it's going to end, as long as you know what the end success looks like, as long as you know that you're embracing the struggle for a very specific reason. You will never learn how to solve the same problem in your life if you constantly run from it. And in fact, the same problem is going to keep showing up over and over again unless you face this crossroads phase, this messy middle, this valley of despair because most leaders quit here. Most leaders abandon the community that they're in, and they go to another community thinking that it's going to be better. There's better conditions, there's better management, there's better support. Maybe there is, okay, maybe there is, but you will not become better if you don't embrace the struggle, if you don't learn from the mistakes that you make in this struggle and learn how to not repeat them over and over again. When you move from a community to a community, it's addicting in some way because you're starting back at hopeful enthusiasm again. You see like you're repeating the pattern. You're going from hopeful enthusiasm to that reality check moment. Then that really messy middle, that dip. And then if you choose to move to another community to try to find the better conditions, better support, you're starting over again in this cycle of constantly avoiding the discomfort is something that's going to cause you to never win, never win. You will never succeed to the point that you truly want to go if you can't embrace the work that will get you there, because this dip, this valley of despair walking through it is the quickest way to earn the outcome that you want. Not avoiding it and going to the next best thing, but actually walking through it. Walking through the pain, learning from the discomfort, becoming aware that. There are elements of you that are the problem and fixing it is how you go to the next phase, which is confident ownership because when you quit in the dip, you waste every ounce of energy already spent trying to walk through it and starting over doesn't give you the credit for how long you tried somewhere else. That's why it's important for us to understand that the fastest way to expertise, the fastest way to becoming the expert in your field, the leader that you wanna be, the mastery of running a successful senior living community is to stay through the messy middle and to earn your way into confident ownership, which is valuing yourself, valuing the experience that you had, and knowing that when the next dip comes, there is something valuable to learn from it. Because if you push through, if you don't bail when it's hard, something powerful happens. You stop fighting every fire and you start leading. Through the dip, you start leading knowing that the value on the other side is worth the pain in the middle, and you have very clear priorities. You build trust and you say to people, this is worth it. Come on. And they believe it because you have the experience. You believe it because you survived the hard parts. That's what the dip teaches us. That's what the hard parts teach us. I've spoken to a lot of leaders who tried to fix everything overnight, and that is not possible. That's where a lot of this burnout lives. That's where you want to quit the dip because you don't see the impact. But fixing everything overnight is not the solution. It really is understanding what needs to be fixed first. And then fixing everything else. And again, I believe firmly that communication is where you start fixing, learning, improving, and everything else will fall into place. Communication is the quickest way in senior living, I believe, to move through the dip. Because when you can work on communication, when you can work on your resilience and understanding that the dip, the hard parts are worth it, you become the leader that you wish you had because you can support other people through the dip. Imagine being an executive director who can help a director of nursing through the dip because these nurses may be quitting because it's hard. Imagine being an executive director who understands that the people. Are the biggest area of focusing on the potential to make, to create more time, more freedom. When you start focusing on people and not necessarily the policies and procedures in the paperwork, it's the people. Imagine the leader who understood because of previous dips that it's emotional intelligence and the way that we think and communicate with ourselves. That's the most important asset that we have in moving out of the dip. In a safe and healthy way for ourselves. The dip creates value. Working through the dip and into the confident ownership creates value because not a lot of people can do it. And if you can do it and come out the other side better than before, healthier mindset, knowing that growth is the goal. Not. The goal itself that's where scarcity makes you valuable. That's when you understand your super strength. That's when you understand the work is worth the result. In today's senior living world, leaders who stick it out are rare, and that rarity is where the true value lives. In a world where everyone gets a trophy, everyone gets a ribbon. Every grade gets a ceremony to move on to the next. The people who can stick out the hard stuff and learn from it and value what they learn from it will set themselves apart, but not even to the next level of leadership or the next title. It's to themselves because the only person that matters, the only person's thoughts that matter about you are yours. And if you constantly let yourself down, if you constantly quit when it's hard, then you never believe that you can. You always will blame your circumstances or people, but the truth is it's because you don't believe in yourself. We can project pain onto other people and not even realize it, and that is an important lesson to learn. But if you can show up for yourself, and give yourself permission to celebrate the small wins. And I mean, truly know what you won today. And to improve the skills to get you to where you wanna go. A hundred percent better communicator, hiring the right people. Watch yourself grow. Watch yourself confidence improve because the people who skip going from the crossroads phase to the confident ownership phase, I believe don't have enough self-confidence. Self-belief, self-worth for themselves because they don't think they can do it and they quit. Quitting is not always losing. There are times where quitting is the right answer and there are times when digging our heels in and. Saying, I'm gonna grow through this. Dip is really important. So how do we know? How do we know when to quit and when to keep going? in this book, the Dip, There are three ways to think about the problem, the dip that you're in, which is really important. And honestly it's brilliant. I wish I came up with this myself. So how do we know if we should stick it out or make a strategic exit if we're in the middle of the dip, right? Which is the crossroads. Before the confident ownership. And if this dip for you is just a dip, it's worth pushing through. we start here at Hopeful Enthusiasm, and then we get closer, and then we're at the reality check phase, and then we go down into the dip. But the thing about a dip is that it comes back up. the, it comes back up. And so we know that if we are in a true dip, we start off high, we fall down low because we're in that learning curve, and then we come back up because we've learned what we need to learn to get to the next level. That's a dip. The outcomes are worth it. But then we have something called the cul-de-sac? Which is a dead end. That no matter what you do, there's no growth. I have heard people say that there's no growth in a control room. There's no growth in an environment where everything is so controlled that anything that you do outside of what you're told to do is chastised and not allowed. There's no growth. There's no opportunity to learn. You have learned everything that you're going to learn. You have applied everything that you're going to apply. There is nowhere else for you to go. That's a cul-de-sac. You're at a dead end, so maybe the pain that you're feeling is not worth it at that point. Maybe you've gone as far as you're going to go. You've gained everything that you can gain If you were in that position. Maybe it's time for a strategic exit to go towards the next level of your growth, of your career, of your life. If there's nothing left to gain, to receive, to implement, and you want more, then that's the cul-de-sac, and a strategic exit that is not quitting. That is knowing what you want and walking towards the next phase. It's empowerment. And then you have the cliff, which lemme tell you something, I, the reason why this is so valuable to me is that I never knew how to quit. I didn't know how to quit. I lived my life knowing that I wasn't going to quit because quitters never win. I will gut through this. I will make this work because I am not a quitter. And you know, some parts of your life that works. But then at some points, of your life, that no longer works because that gut, that grit, it becomes too intense, And the other part is you run into a cliff, which to me is the burnout in my life, in my career. With my mindset that quitters never win, that I will make this work no matter what. I cannot leave the people that I love. I cannot leave my community. The cliff happens. The cliff is the burnout. The cliff is you are too aggressive and too passionate. You have ignored all the warning signs, all the lights came up on your dashboard and it says you need attention now, but you ignored the lights and you ran off the cliff. That's a brutal way of realizing that the dip isn't worth, it wasn't worth it. because if it's going to cost us everything we have, the dip may not be worth it. The outcome wasn't there. The people never appreciated it, or you never were able to receive the communication that they were trying to give you. The cliff is a very harsh way of realizing that it was time to leave. And you didn't leave, but as a great teacher and understanding, what warning signs did you ignore? Why did you ignore them, and why were they important? For me, it was the best lesson in life that sometimes quitting is the most gracious thing that you can do for yourself and in another way. Understanding The dip is hard. But it has an end, and the reward is on the other side, and it's up to you to understand, is the reward worth it? Is there a reward? A paycheck is a reward, but is the paycheck enough? Is growth. Now more important to you than just a paycheck. And can you look at the dip, the valley of despair or the messy middle in a way that is healthy and helps you grow through what you go through. You grow to the next phase of your life. just to summarize the three different ways to view the dip of whether or not this is worth it for you is one question, Am I willing to pay the price to achieve my dreams? Can I commit to discipline to survive the dip? And those are important questions to ask yourself. When you are walking through those really challenging times, the cul-de-sac is the job or the circumstance that goes nowhere. You can keep trying forever and stay exactly where you are if you are stuck in the cul-de-sac. Quitting strategically is wise. If you want more growth, if your life circumstances can afford you the time and the discipline commitment that growing through the dip requires to find your next mountain, the cliff, that's where you ignore all the warning signs until there's no option but to quit or walked out the door. in senior living, we call that burnout, or as I like to call it, the flame out. If you keep quitting in the dip, you'll find yourself starting many things, but finishing very few, starting is easy, and finishing is where the magic happens. So if you are in the phase where you're asking yourself, should I quit? Am I quitting? Do I need to quit? Am I cut out for this? Am I enough? I really want you to understand this. The problems on your desk is not because you're not enough. Maybe you don't know what you don't know. Maybe you don't have the skillset that you need for all the problems that are on your desk, and that's okay. As long as you're aware of where you need to grow, it's not necessarily failing. When you have the awareness to understand what I need to grow, I want you to look at those stack of problems, those small fires smoldering in every area of your community or your life. And I want you to look at it as proof that you have an opportunity to expand your capacity, that your leadership and the impact that you wanna have in this life, in this world deserves expansion. Imagine looking at the stack of problems that you have personally, professionally, any way as a way of growing your capacity. Problem solving is a skill we all gonna have. The world is continuing to have bigger and worse problems for us to solve. That's not gonna go away. So if you continue to think about things as, I'm not enough. Or I'm not good enough, or I'm a failure, you're never going to be better. But if you look at'em as an opportunity to get better, to improve your skill, to grow your impact because it deserves it, because you have the potential to impact in a positive way, all of a sudden life changes dramatically. Everything you look at, everything that you do is through the lens of growing, of getting better, of increasing my capacity. And yes, sometimes that's exhausting and you need to take a break, but it's motivating, it's inspiring. It will keep you committed to the road ahead and the growth. And it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks. It matters what you think and what you're willing and able to commit to, and that's growing. But we all have to ask ourselves some hard questions when it comes to the environment that we're in. If we're in the cul-de-sac, if we're running towards the cliff, or if we're just in a dip. Do I need to quit? Do I need to find better conditions in order to be successful? Because these are real circumstances that we need to address. So before you actually. Submit a letter of resignation. I want you to ask yourself three questions. Am I panicking because, hey, quick thought of I need to quit, or I'm in trouble, or I made a mistake. I need to quit, is a panic signal because you don't want to feel the sting of. The negative repercussions. We cannot act on a panicked thought. Maybe we did make a mistake. Maybe we need to suffer the consequences. I remember making a huge mistake and a very big emotional response. I've talked about it a lot and I called my regional director and I said, I think I need to quit. That was a very irrational response to a situation that I certainly did not show up for as my best, but I was panicked. I didn't want to be forced out. I wanted to quit on my own terms, I didn't have a plan, so that was panic. That was not a strategic exit, that was a panicked Emotional response. So if you are panicking and you make a mistake, or you're scared, or you had a bad sales call, or you had a bad financial review, call sleep on it, talk it out. Regain perspective. Create a story. Tell the story in a way that serves the community, the company, and yourself. I'm gonna learn through this. I'm gonna grow through this. I understand I'm not gonna make the same mistake again. All of those are very important. The second question is, who am I trying to influence and can they be influenced? Sometimes we fight the wrong battles. The biggest mistake I ever made, and maybe you're making the same mistake too, was not knowing the answer to this question. Who am I trying to influence? Really? Who, because I projected a lot of pain on to other people. I projected my own negative self-image, my own negative self-talk, my own negative self-worth on to other people. And I assumed that they thought about me the way that I thought about me. And so when I was trying to kill myself to get to a hundred percent after COVID and to prove my worth to these people, I believed it was because they thought I was unworthy. And the problem is they didn't think like that. They didn't think about me at all. I'm the one that put that on them, and they had no idea that I was doing that. That is the biggest mistake I was making. I was trying to influence people that didn't need to be influenced, I needed to influence myself. I needed to change the way that I thought about myself. I needed to change the way that I viewed every problem inside of my community as a way to grow instead of a way to prove my unworthiness. And that gets deep. But if you take the time and you think about this, you might find yourself doing the same thing, whether it's in your. Personal relationships, your professional relationships. The way that you see yourself is the way that you will think other people see you, Who are you trying to influence and can they be influenced? Do they even think the way that you do? Do they even want the outcome that you're trying to offer? If they can be influenced, okay, but if you are wanting to quit and there's no way around and the discomfort that you're feeling cannot be influenced, the outcomes aren't worth it, then make a plan, but don't make a reactive decision. You can give a company, you can give somebody everything they want, and you can stay the same person stuck in the same negative loops in life because you were thinking that by giving them what they want, they were going to be influenced to see you in the way that you wanted to be seen. Therefore, you remain stuck. Figure out who you're trying to influence and if they can be influenced and try to understand is it really you that needs to be influenced by the way that you think about yourself? And question number three, will quitting get me something that's staying through the dip? Won't. Is the discomfort worth the reward? And are you. Escaping growth by quitting. When the answer is yes, when you believe that the messy middle is worth the mastery, the impact, and the calm confidence on the other side, don't you dare quit in the dip because the dip is why you're here. It's the secret that weeds out the mediocre and leaves room for the truly great opportunities that lie ahead for people who are willing to work in the dip, the messy middle, or the valley of despair. Remember, your growth is not automatic, and success does not guarantee leadership impact or growth inside of a company. But when you know what you want, when you know what you're willing to commit to, when you know the price that you're willing to pay for the expertise. That you deserve, that you believe that you're worth and that you're capable of committing to the dip is worth the discomfort. In senior living, the goal is to get to a hundred percent and to have great NOI. The problem is, is that getting there is the dip. Getting there is the hard part, and getting there is worth the effort of learning how to do it in a healthy and positive way. This will help you become the leader that you were born to be. Adversity can be your ally if you look at it from a place of being enough, being worthy and willing to pay the price to become the expert, because that is where growth happens from a place of enoughness and curiosity to understand what it's like to actually meet the goals that you want. Most people run from the discomfort, but the brave ones will stay. The brave ones will grow and the brave ones will gain more than they ever thought was possible because they believed and they committed to the discomfort. We wanna help leaders master the messy middle. So you don't just survive it, you own it. If this episode inspired you, made you feel a little bit of motivation, share it with the leader who needs it. Follow the podcast so you can know that you're not alone, that the person who understands. The dip, the messy middle, the hard parts, the commitment, the price to success is here helping you understand that it's worth it as long as you're being healthy and as long as you have the self-awareness to know that it is worth it, that you are enough, and that you just have to find the right people to help you get there in a healthy and faster way. So stick with it. That's what my course is for. That's what my coaching programs are for, and that's what one-on-one coaching can do for you. To give you the confidence and the strength to make it through the messy middle. Don't do it alone. Plug in to a community that understands and wants you to succeed. I'm cheering you on always. You've got this. And aspire for more for you because when you own your story, you can create your future.