How I make big life decisions
I recently quit my job and took a new one. A job I really enjoyed with a team that became like family. In the four years I was at this firm, I grew so much personally and professionally, but over the last few months, I’ve felt a shift coming.
Because I believe God prepares us for change, even if it appears like unexpected change, but little by little, He plants seeds and opens doors until one day it all connects, and you’re like, “Oh, this was His plan all along.”
Making big life decisions has always been hard for me, so I wanted to share how and why we made this decision in case you’re also thinking about making a change in your life and may feel stuck or unsure as to whether to take the leap.
Sometimes, you have to make a change to keep growing
I remember when my family decided to start attending a new church my first year of law school. Making the decision to leave a church we grew up in with friends that had become family was hard, particularly for my parents. But it was something my dad felt God was calling him too and here is how he explained it:
Imagine yourself as a potted plant. For many plants, the time comes when the pot becomes too small, and the plant must be replanted into a bigger pot so the roots have more room to grow.
For humans, it’s the same thing: sometimes, we need to change where we are in order to grow better and further. Whether that’s changing jobs, churches, habits, or where you live.
I remembered this story when my husband and I were discussing whether I should take a job offer I received. It came out of nowhere and wasn’t in our plans, but in many ways, it fit with what we were working towards as a family. For various reasons, the role I was in had shifted and changed and it felt tight - like I couldn’t grow in the way I wanted to and needed to at this point in my career.
Knowing when to make a change to maximize personal or professional growth is hard, because many of us need to learn when to quit. It is especially difficult to do when others don’t get your decision and question why you would want to quit something good. Or sometimes, we just get too comfortable where we are.
I highly recommend reading Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away by Annie Duke on this topic - it was so eye opening for me!
Look for confirmations (not signs)
Growing up, I felt like I needed 10,000 signs from God when making decisions. But, in time, I’ve realized that signs follow closely upon actions. If you’ve been asking God and looking for a sign, He likely won’t give you one because signs are meant to follow believers, instead of believers following after signs.
Action breeds clarity. When you take the step in faith, He will confirm to you and everyone around you that He is in it. Miracles follow obedience. Signs follow actions.
I always pray that God would open and close doors according to His will. With this job offer, that’s what it felt like - a door opened unexpectedly and the place I was in felt like it was getting tighter and tighter.
Even so, I still doubted if I should step through that open door. But after extensive discussions with my husband and praying about it, we decided to go for it.
That evening, we were reading 2 Corinthians and read this:
“Now when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found that the Lord had opened a door for me…” -2 Corinthians 2:12
The exact words I had prayed became the confirmation I was seeking.
And, I am hopeful that as time passes, there will be more confirmations that this was the best decision for us.
That’s the thing about faith: it requires a degree of risk - to step into the unknown when you may only be 51% sure that something is the best next step, yet trusting that if you do this in faith, God will fill the other 49% as you move forward.
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. -Hebrews 11:1
This episode by Christy Wright is a good one on what to do when you’re not sure what God wants for you.
Know what you stand for and where you’re going
This is the number one lesson my husband and I teach in our dating ministry. Because decisions are so much easier to make when you know what matters to you and what you’re working towards.
There’s this concept called “a strategy screen” - which is basically a set of criteria that an organization uses to determine if a particular strategy aligns with their identity. In a constantly changing world, it’s important to be able to make quick and wise decisions without sacrificing your mission just to chase something new and shiny.
In her book, Drop the Ball, Tiffany Dufu talks about how she applied this concept to their family. Whenever they had a decision to make, they’d ask if the course of action they were considering was aligned with four questions:
Will this advance women and/or sub-Saharan Africa?
Is this true to the values our parents instilled in us?
Will this put us on a path to financial freedom?
Will our descendants be proud of us?
These four questions reflected their family values and goals, so I encourage you to take this and apply it to your family. My husband and I are working on ours and it’s still in progress, but we tested it out with this job decision and it helped so much! Here’s what we have so far:
Does this align with how the Bible calls us to live out our lives?
Will this put us on a path to financial freedom?
Will this help us with the legacy we are building for our family? E.g., is this the best use of our time and resources on our way to where we want to be?
This job decision checked all these boxes, with #2 sealing the deal since the new job offer came with a pay increase.
So, that’s how I ended up quitting a job I enjoyed, to take a risk on a job I hope I’ll grow in and enjoy just as much. This feels like the best next step, and I’m excited to see what God has in store for our family in this next chapter.
P.S. If you’re curious, I took a risk management role at another accounting firm.
P.P.S. If you need help deciding your next career steps, I have a career planning workbook included in my course for Christian women in the workplace.
