734: Career Change After a Toxic Job: How to Rebuild Your Confidence Before You Job Search

[00:00:00] Emily Tahti: You're sacrificing so much of yourself when you're in these toxic places, and you don't see it, and other people just take advantage of it. Like, I would never want to be in that position again.

[00:00:08] Scott Anthony Barlow: That's Emily, and what she's describing happens to almost every high performer who walks out of a toxic environment.

[00:00:14] Often, you think that leaving's going to fix the problem, but it can follow you into the next role, the next job search, in the interview seat, into how you describe your own work, into the voice in your head that sounds exactly like that person who spent months telling you that you weren't enough.

[00:00:31] So how do you get back to the version of yourself that environment took away before it follows you into your next role and beyond? So we've been doing this long enough to know that, all right, getting out of a toxic environment, it should very much feel like a relief, and for a lot of people, it doesn't.

[00:00:48] A lot of times, what happens is it leaves behind this residue that makes you second-guess your instincts, sometimes doubt your own value. Sometimes it impacts your confidence, and it carries the weight of your worst work experience into future situations like the job search, like your next opportunity.

[00:01:05] We don't want that to happen. So, this entire episode, I just want to acknowledge that, first and foremost, your capabilities haven't changed. Your feedback did. Now, that is what's called confidence distortion, and it's what happens when you're in a toxic environment, and your performance is run through this dysfunctional environment, and you're seeing it through that lens instead of the truth.

[00:01:29] By the end of this episode, you're going to learn to recognize this, and you're also going to be able to reset it using some of our signature strengths framework. And you'll be able to rebuild what we call an Ideal Career Profile so that you're searching towards something that is real and not just running from something bad. We want you running towards something.

[00:01:50] We're also gonna cover what to do when leaving feels like losing, and how to talk about what happened in an interview without it becoming the whole entire story. A Robert Half survey of over 1,500 workers found out that burnout is now one of the top reasons that people are changing jobs.

[00:02:05] Okay, not a surprise, right? The Berkeley Future of Work research puts it very simply, "Burnout is high, trust is low." That's pretty common right now, but it's actually been common for years. What that data can't capture is what it feels like to walk into a job search when the last thing your workplace did was chip away at your confidence. Here's what confidence distortion looks like in practice.

[00:02:30] Emily Tahti: I felt so scared to just assert myself, or if I thought, like, there was something that could be better, I just didn't have it to go there and be like, "You know, this is wrong." And it was reversed to where it was like, "Well, you're not being cooperative," and like, "You're being too harsh," or this or that. And so I think that that takes away, 'cause then I'm like, "Oh, maybe I am wrong. Like, maybe I don't know what I'm doing."

[00:02:53] Scott Anthony Barlow: Emily said, "Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I don't know what I'm doing." That's the piece that does the most damage. That's not self-awareness. It's a toxic environment doing its job. And a senior professional with well over a decade of experience, 15 years of experience, should never sit across from me and say, "I just don't know if I have what it takes anymore."

[00:03:12] Emily, in her case, in many ways, was exceptional at her job, and yet she hesitated to apply for roles two levels below where she was. Think about that for a second. That's the thing that is fascinating in a horrific sort of way about a toxic work environment.

[00:03:30] It causes qualified, very capable professionals to walk into interviews and unconsciously undermine themselves by hedging and over-explaining because the voice in their head sounds exactly like their boss, their leader, their manager, their coworker who spent so many months telling them that they weren't enough.

[00:03:50] Here's the thing. That voice, though, let's just acknowledge that it belongs to an environment you left, not to you. But if you don't address it before you start walking into interactions, interviews, conversations, then it's going to deceive you the moments that matter the very, very most. And that's where this idea of signature strengths comes in.

[00:04:12] According to Martin Seligman, who did some foundational work in positive psychology, signature strengths are those character strengths that are the most essential to who we are. I love that definition. And when you use strengths, they allow you to be yourself. And interestingly enough, but probably not a surprise, you're usually the happiest and tend to operate at your best when you get to utilize those strengths consistently.

[00:04:39] Now, what a toxic environment does is it makes you forget that they exist, or worse, it convinces you that the things that you are naturally the best at, or the way that you're wired, is actually causing problems.

[00:04:50] By the way, if you wanna go much deeper into this, we actually do get into quite a bit of detail in the Happen To Your Career book and the Happen to Your Career audiobook, and we'll actually link up the audiobook where you can get it for free right now. That link will be in the description or the show notes, and I would say check that out while it's still free.

[00:05:09] In order to identify your signature strengths, we ask questions like, "When have you felt the most alive at work?" Okay, great question, but often we need to peel back the layers even further, and that can happen with other questions.

[00:05:23] So another one would be, "What kinds of problems do people bring specifically to you because they know that you'll be able to handle them differently than anyone else?" One of my favorite questions is, "What do you find yourself gravitating towards that really isn't a part of your role and really isn't what you're paid to do, but you can't help but do it over and over and over again?"

[00:05:43] In all cases, what we're trying to do here is we're trying to get back to who you naturally are and what you bring to the table that nobody else has. Again, check out the audiobook for more on strengths. I think that you'll love it. And Emily, who you heard from earlier, was originally a paralegal, and she swore never to return to the legal field.

[00:06:05] And when we first started working with her later on, she felt very trapped in a very unhealthy work environment. And of course, in that situation, most people are really unsure what their next step should be. It makes you question everything. Okay, so Emily went through much of the same strengths work that I'm describing, and we've just hit on a very few, you know, sampling of questions.

[00:06:27] However, she did some fairly intensive work, and what she found out was that the qualities that her office labeled as liabilities, for example, like her sensitivity, her emotional attunement, were actually a source of what made her exceptional.

[00:06:41] Emily Tahti: They always would use to, kind of, describe me as is that I was sensitive and I was overwhelmed and emotional.

[00:06:49] And he was like, "Did you ever think that maybe that's just like how they responded to like their own like flaws or like what was going on in the office? Like, you should rethink it to how you being sensitive is a strength for you. Being emotional and like being open with people is a good thing. Like, don't let them take that and make it a negative thing about yourself."

[00:07:10] Scott Anthony Barlow: So that reframe here, it's not a liability; it's actually a strength. And if you think about strengths, they have positive and negative benefits, two sides of the exact same coin. That's the reset, and it can't happen if you walk into a search still carrying somebody else's framing of who you are. Now, I think something else that is really interesting is the research backs this up.

[00:07:34] Gallup is an organization who's done quite a bit of research in this area, and people who use their strengths regularly experience more positive emotions, lower stress, less worry on a regular basis, less anger. Your body actually responds differently when you're operating from strength because how you see yourself going in determines everything about how you show up.

[00:07:56] Really, we should address another area that happens quite a bit. In particular, a feeling that many of our clients who've left toxic environments tend to carry around, and they tend to feel like they're the ones who failed in many ways, even if they have evidence to the contrary. Even when they resigned, even when leaving was clearly the right call, it still lingers.

[00:08:18] They tend to still hear, "I couldn't make it work. I gave up." Now, part of this is this really interesting view that we have in Western society and a number of other cultures where we feel like we have to keep going, no matter what, in all costs, and that's just the thing that you do. However, that's not always the right call, and, you know, I mentioned the Happier in Your Career book.

[00:08:39] That's a great resource, but we also have a chapter in there called 'Adjusting to Setbacks', and the core of it, the core idea there, is setbacks occur when you discover the need to move down a different path from where you were anticipating. What this really means is it doesn't equate to failure. It's data, it's input that determines a new path for you in whatever form that is going to be relevant.

[00:09:02] Now, I think what's really interesting about this, the people who struggle the most with this are people that are usually viewed and have viewed themselves as very high performers, you know, sustaining very high performance over a time period.

[00:09:14] And because high performers believe that if they work hard enough, they can make anything work, which can be a very helpful outlook, but only gets you so far. So when something doesn't, they tend to blame themselves first. It's almost automatic. Sometimes we don't even realize that we're doing it.

[00:09:29] So in Emily's case, she stayed two years past her own resignation letter. Two years. Not because she didn't know she needed to leave, that was starting to get very obvious, but because she couldn't stop feeling responsible.

[00:09:44] Emily Tahti: I put my notice in, and then about six months later, I just couldn't leave. They wouldn't find someone, and of course, I felt guilty, so I never left. And then COVID hit, and then I stayed for another, like, year and a half, and so we call it my two-year notice.

[00:09:58] Scott Anthony Barlow: There was something that finally changed this for Emily, and that's when she watched a colleague get fired. This was someone she worked very closely with for years. She'd built a personal and professional relationship, and suddenly had her access cut off without warning and her belongings boxed up.

[00:10:15] There was no conversation, no warning, just locked up computer. She was shipped out, and this made Emily realize something. With the environment she was in, the people that she was surrounded by, it made her realize that if she quit today, they're probably not gonna be still thinking about her in six months.

[00:10:31] And the honest truth was that in her case, in her scenario with the group of people that she was working with, they weren't necessarily thinking about her in the way that she was looking for at all. Unfortunately, they never were, and that was part of the problem. Once Emily realized that the loyalty was one-sided, she started trying to apply her way out, applying to other jobs outside.

[00:10:52] But here's what a lot of people miss. When they launch straight into a job search before they've figured out what they're actually searching for, it usually happens in response to trying to remove yourself from a bad situation, and it can very much be a trap, especially after a terrible situation like a very toxic experience or coming out of a toxic work environment.

[00:11:14] We have this concept called the Ideal Career Profile, or the ICP, and it really doesn't matter what we call it. The important thing that the reason behind why we developed the tool is it allows it to act as what we'd call a decision filter. Now, the reason that's important is because it allows you to make better decisions and really learn what it is that you're looking for along the way, so you're running towards something as opposed to running away from something.

[00:11:38] Okay. Now, there's a couple practical things to point out here. The ideal Career Profile is really, at its core, a very large list of all the pieces that you must have in your work and what you're aspiring towards. And that's what, slowly, over all of those different pieces, think of it almost as a very large checklist.

[00:11:59] It allows you to be able to build a picture of what it is that you really need within your work and how your work supports the rest of your life that you're trying to build. Okay. Now, the reason that this can be so challenging coming out of a toxic work environment is that experience is very loud in the back of your head.

[00:12:19] One of the pieces that we all need to some degree is autonomy and flexibility. Just as humans, we have that need. What it looks like for you versus me versus the next person is very different. However, if you were micromanaged, then you're gonna be like, "This is the biggest thing that I absolutely need and must have, and, you know, this is the most important thing."

[00:12:40] That recency bias causes you to say, "This is the area I must have first 'cause I did not have that prior." Another example would be if you're coming out of an environment where none of your ideas got heard, you might over-index on, in a boss that is listening to you. It's totally human bias, but too much emphasis here can means that you risk chasing the antidote to your last role rather than what would actually fit you best.

[00:13:08] So this is why we use what we call the minimum versus ideal structure. For each element that you need from work, autonomy, contribution, growth, values, who are the people around you specifically, we're asking what are the absolute minimum that I need to be at my best, and what would ideal actually look like?

[00:13:30] Separating those two out, because it's really hard to hold both of those in our head at the same time. Your minimums are your filters. Your ideals are your targets and what you're aspiring to. Knowing both means that you're building towards something that is right for you, and not just the absence of something that's bad for you.

[00:13:49] Emily Tahti: Work-life balance was huge for me because I had none. You know, I got calls on weekends, I got calls after work. It was really important for me to, like, find a place that would support that, and to just be... not look at me as, like, just an employee, but, like, as a person. You know? I wanted to be able to wake up and not have this, like, fear.

[00:14:10] Scott Anthony Barlow: That's the difference between chasing relief and building towards something that is real. Emily knew what her minimums were, and starting from that level of clarity meant she could actually evaluate what she was walking into, instead of just running away from what she was trying to leave. So I also wanna leave you with a formula that can be valuable for describing why it is that you left.

[00:14:31] Because somebody's gonna ask, and the hesitation here is, "I don't wanna badmouth my last employer. I do want to be able to transparently and honestly share why I left", and there's that tension that goes in between the two.

[00:14:44] So here's a three-part framework that's honest, it's forward-looking, without requiring you to perform positivity that you might not feel.

[00:14:53] Number one, I want you to briefly name something that was true and valuable about the role, the company, the situation, the work experience as a whole. Even in a toxic environment, something about that existed. One sentence.

[00:15:08] And then what you discovered about yourself. Now, not what was wrong with them, because if you're coming out of a toxic environment, there were some things going wrong there, right? Let's be honest. However, that's not what we're focused on, but what you learned about what you need is a great place to substitute this in.

[00:15:26] For example, what that might sound like is, "I realize that I do my best work in environments with real ownership and a culture that values directness and equates it with kindness."

[00:15:37] Whatever that is for you, it's not gonna be the exact same thing. It also, when you're sharing it in this way, this is not an indictment of the people that you used to work with. It is a description focused solely on you. You're taking that ownership. Important distinction.

[00:15:51] Then, number three, we wanna connect this back to the role that you're interviewing for or the company that you're interviewing for, the future focus.

[00:15:57] Emily Tahti: The interview prep was one of the biggest things for me. I don't do speaking well. I get very nervous, so working through that interview prep, being able to, like, thinking through how am I going to present myself in what I know was huge. And so just go in knowing that these people, they had to go through an interview process, too. If it doesn't happen, that just opens the door up for the next thing to happen.

[00:16:21] Scott Anthony Barlow: So if I'm trying to answer that question of what caused you to leave or why'd you leave, then here's how that might sound in reality.

[00:16:28] I used to work at Target in the HR leadership function, and one of the things about Target is it is a retailer, and everybody in the entire organization, really, you [00:16:40] know, supports the retail function in one way or another.

[00:16:43] And what that means for a lot of folks that work at Target is that you're working a lot of different hours at potentially different times. And, yeah, some of the biggest days in the entire year are holidays for them, like around Christmas or around Thanksgiving. And so, in having that experience, I realized that I do my best work when I have a lot of very specific flexibility.

[00:17:08] So I actually had this conversation multiple times over with my boss, and I realized that I was not gonna be able to do my best work in this environment. So that's actually one of the biggest reasons why I left. And also, it is one of the reasons why I'm most interested in working here, because I'll have that level of flexibility so I can do my best work in the way that really, you know, fits me, and it's an area that I have a big interest in. And then I could even go on to describe, you know, what that interest is, A, B, and C.

[00:17:39] Okay, that's what it can sound like in reality. So interesting thing about Emily's situation is, she moved into this new role and then later on got promoted too, because she's in a much better environment, because she is able to use much more of her strengths, because it is much better alignment with what she specifically defined that she wanted.

[00:17:58] Okay, but here's where it gets fascinating, because so many people, when they're coming out of a whatever environment that's not great for them, they confuse it with the occupation or the situation, and they say, "I need to get completely out of legal," in this case. That's what Emily had said. Now, she did all this work to figure out what would fit her best, what's the environment, the type of role, and swore she'd never return to legal, and Emily found the perfect opportunity in, take a guess, the legal field.

[00:18:31] Crazy. That happens much more frequently than you might imagine, because we have this effect of trying to throw the baby out with the bathwater without even realizing it, if we do not go through the process of declaring what we specifically want, need, and how we would benefit the most for work that fits us versus the other way around.

[00:18:52] Okay, her new environment, though, was a night-and-day difference than what she previously experienced. Turns out it wasn't about legal for her, it was about those other things that she needed even more. The version of you that walked out of that toxic environment depleted, second-guessing, carrying a story that wasn't yours, that version of you has the power to change the narrative and step back into your version of yourself, what we would call your signature strengths.

[00:19:17] This is something so many people experience, and if you'd like some help navigating through both life and work after leaving a toxic work environment, drop me an email, scott@happentoyourcareer.com. Put 'Conversation' in the subject line, and I'll connect you to the right member of our team. We'll hop on a call with you.

[00:19:34] We'll ask you questions to understand what your goals are and how we can best help, and we'll put together a plan for you. Get out there and find who you really are, and work that fits. I'm Scott Anthony Barlow, and this is Happen to Your Career. Adios. I'm out.