Keep Going

Don’t give up too soon!

She called me on a Wednesday morning.

Said she was going to take a contract role she didn’t want, in an industry she wasn’t excited about, because she couldn’t take being in transition anymore.

Eight months of searching. Two final-round rejections in the last six weeks. Her savings runway getting thinner. Her confidence quieter every week.

I asked her one question. “How would you feel a year from now, in this contract role?”

She didn’t say anything for a while. Then: “Like I gave up two weeks too early.”

I didn’t tell her not to take it. That’s not my call to make. I told her: if she was going to accept it, she should be clear that this was a financial decision, not a career decision. Both are valid. But she should know which one she was making.

She didn’t take the contract.

Twelve days later, an offer landed from a final round she thought she’d lost. It wasn’t her dream role. It was a fit. She accepted.

I’m not telling this story to suggest everyone should hold out. Sometimes the contract is the right call. Sometimes the financial pressure is too real to absorb. Those are individual decisions, and I don’t have a clean answer that applies to everyone.

What I want to say is this: in a long search, the moment you’re most likely to give up is often very close to the moment things would have turned. Not always. But often. That’s not motivational — it’s a pattern I’ve watched play out in 20+ years of this work.

If you’re in that moment right now, the question isn’t “should I keep going.” The question is: “if I make this decision today, am I clear about what kind of decision I’m making?”

Sometimes that clarity changes the answer. Sometimes it doesn’t. But you’ll live with the decision better either way.