When the line becomes flat you know what happens after

What makes you change your job or career?

I started by professional life with 18 years old in the IT and Consulting area. Back then the priority was to learn, to be recognized for being the best and to be able to continue to develop my studies.

Soon, after the dot com (.com) bubble I had to change my job for a new one. I noticed that I had to learn a lot of new things in a short period of time. Fortunately I had the chance to work for a lot of different costumers, meet new people everyday and learn new technologies and techniques in a very high frequency rate.

Things started to happen really fast and my performance was going really well. I was invited to change my job again and I accepted. The cycle happened again:

1. Learnt a lot
2. Met new people
3. Delivered results

But in the third year a new feeling appeared: the need to change to another job again in order to accelerate my self-education, get to know people with different mindsets, new organizational culture and continue to deliver new and innovate results.

I would say that somehow, coincidence or not, in my third year in a job role I needed to change. I wasn’t learning so much, the challenge was accomplished and routine was the new standard.

When this happens motivation levels go down and the energy you spend for your self-motivation becomes a burden.

You have three options when your motivation levels are down and you wake up without the good “drill” of going to work do things. Options are:

1. You became a Zombie — you go to work, you deliver the minimum and yo go home
2. You try to create a new and challenging project in your organization
3. You move to another job

This moment is what I call “the moment where the line becomes flat”. When this happens, it’s time to change as soon as possible. Doing nothing turns you into a Zombie — you can move but your heart is stopped!

Let me tell you — I know a lot of Zombies.

People that don’t like what they do because of a toxic culture in the work environment or have a bad manager, the salary is below level of expertise, …, and a lot of different reasons, need to do something. Turning into a Zombie for more than a certain period of time is a total waste of time.

Of course that sometimes you just don’t know if your option would be a better decision or not. But you must try to change your professional life. If you are a Zombie already, what can go wrong?

This is a huge problem for companies (public or private) that just don’t care or don’t understand what’s happening to there employees.

A lot of really well known brands suffer from Zombies. And when this Zombies start to share what they are suffering to people outside of their company, which is something that happens really fast nowadays with social networks, brands start to suffer and sooner or later they will lose money, or even worst, their whole business may go down.

This “heads-up” is for you:

1. if you are a company — make sure that your employees are happy because they are not only your employees, they are your ambassadors and the ones you depend to be successful
2. if you are an employee — if your line is flat or about to become flat, you must act. You rather create a new challenge inside your company or move out as fast as possible even if you lose some money — there is nothing more important than having a happy day and your salary will not be what comes in mind in the end of your life
3. if you are an entrepreneur — if your idea or company isn’t making you happy you really must think what you can do to change — and this is particularly important for entrepreneurs since the stress level is very high and can severely damage ones life

Three really easy symptoms do detect that “your line became flat”:

1. you are unhappy in job for more than 6 months
2. you don’t wake up in the morning with that feeling of “let’s go kick some ass!!!”
3. you have difficulties to wake up

Keep on moving. Always. Life is too short and you have no time to lose.

When one door closes, others will open.

Just change.