What I Learned After Quitting My Dream Job

“Come work for me,” my old boss told me over the phone almost two years ago. “I’ll make you a copywriter,” he promised, his words hanging heavy in the air like hazy heat on a hot summer day.

As I held the phone close to my ear, I could feel my heart skip a beat.

This was it. This was my dream job, and it was being offered to me on a silver platter with more money and opportunity than I had ever been given before.

But part of me felt undeserving: could I really do the job my current agency had discouraged me from pursuing?

Before this point, I had expressed a strong interest in copywriting, and wanted to jump departments. I never asked for more money, or a title change, all I wanted was a chance to do the work.

“We didn’t hire you to be a copywriter,” the director of HR told me when we sat down together to discuss my future at the company. I remember her smiling as she delivered the news to me, shrugging her shoulders ever-so-slightly as if to say, “what are you gonna do, ya know?”

Another part of me felt assured: “you’ve worked your ass off,” I told myself, “You’ve put in the time, and the work. You deserve this.”

So, when the CEO called to offer me the job (and more money than I had originally asked for), I said, “hell yes.”

And for the first year, it was truly everything I had ever wanted.

Working for a powerful, female CEO was inspiring; she trusted my opinion, and from day one, put me right in the epicenter of our small, but ultra-talented creative team.

And working under my boss, an accomplished, well-known creative was a dream-come-true; he pushed me to places I never thought I could go, and helped me gain a sense of confidence as a female creative in a male-dominated field.

So, for almost two years, I wrote broadcast scripts, went on business trips, led pitches for powerhouse clients, and felt creatively stretched in the most positive ways possible.

But alas, one day I woke up. My dream job had fluctuated between fantasy and nightmare for too long and I finally had to call it quits.

It was gut-wrenching, painful, and utterly sad.

Not only did I feel like I was leaving an amazing team, but I felt completely lost; what do you do after you land your dream job?

Where do I even go from here?

Well, I start a new, full-time job tomorrow.

No, It’s not my “dream job”, but it does pay well, has great benefits and they allow dogs in the office.

And as I prepare for this next step in my “career,” I can’t help but wonder what that dream job was all worth. What did I get out of it? And more importantly, what did I learn while living out my “fantasy”?

Nothing is ever as it seems

This sounds negative, but it’s really not.

I think of it more as “managing expectations” and being aware of the fact that no matter how great (or in some cases, shitty) a job may seem, it will never be exactly as you imagine.

I’m still shocked listening to my friends who work at big companies like Google, Seamless, and Saatchi & Saatchi, feel as bored and unimpressed as I do when watching golf on TV.

The point being, when you take a new job, no matter how big, small, well-known, or brand-new the company, it’s a risk.

There will always be highs, and most definitely lows, but whatever you may think the job is going to be, know it will almost certainly (at one point or another) be exactly what you thought it wasn’t.

Always plan for your next move

When I took my last job, I assumed it was the last job I would ever take. I truly believed I would work with the man who recruited me forever, and I would follow him wherever he went.

Therefore, I never responded to recruiters when they reached out. Or set up my portfolio. I never took freelance projects, and hardly worked on my own blogs. My job became the most important thing to me because I treated it as if it was my lifeline; without this job, who was I? How could I possibly survive without it?

I never assumed I needed any kind of a backup plan.

And when my boss told me he was leaving (and moving across the country, no less), I found myself feeling like the wind had been knocked out of me. I felt unsure, unprepared, and completely freaked out.

What the fuck was I going to do?

Turns out, my boss and I did talk. And while he was there to review my portfolio (when I finally put it together), and give me notes on my resume, it was truly up to me to make the list of places I wanted to go, to write the letters to agencies and companies who weren’t even hiring copywriters, and to pickup freelance jobs, in case I one day found myself without a job (spoiler alert: I did!).

Care less

I don’t mean this to seem like you shouldn’t care about your job, especially one you deem important enough to call your “dream job.”

But looking back on all of the stressing out, the worrying, and mental / physical illnesses I incurred as a result of caring way too much, I realized, in retrospect, that it was just a job.

It. Was. Just. A. Job.

No one is thinking about the presentations I thought I completely fucked up (and if they are, who cares!), the decks that had punctuation errors, or the office drama that happened on x, y, or z day.

And sure, maybe you need a little stress / worry in your career before you can take a step back from it all, but realizing where you draw the line between working hard, and working yourself into the ground, is important.

Don’t be afraid to quit

This is the biggest piece of advice I can ever give anyone who is thinking about quitting their job.

I hemmed and hawed forever over what to do, and when to do it, and blah, blah, blah, I eventually just quit one day without even having a job yet and honestly, it was the best decision of my life.

Yes, I had a few thousand in savings, a freelance job, and was about to take a trip to Europe, but it honestly made sense.

If you are completely miserable at your job, why stay? You’re not helping yourself, nor the company by staying around.

For me, I found myself becoming a completely negative person by staying at my job. I was miserable in the office, miserable at home, and it was making other people unhappy as a result.

And people (i.e. — your parents, significant others, etc) will have their opinions, but at the end of the day, you are the one who has to live going into an office you hate, or doing a job you don’t like every single day, so make the decision that is right for you and your mental / physical health, not what people think you should do.

And like my old boss told me, don’t be afraid of not having a job, or not having money. If you are good at what you do, you will ALWAYS have other opportunities and you will ALWAYS make more money!

Be free for a while if you can manage it — it can truly help reset your focus and help you to better understand what you want to do moving forward.

Life goes on after the “dream job”

At the time, yes, it was my dream job. But today, I’m not sure I have a “dream job” in my future.

Yes, I will continue to work and hopefully expand my skill-set, but to me, I’m realizing that no job is ever going to fulfill all of the things I want for myself in my life.

I want to write books. I want to cook amazing food, and write about it on my blog. I want to hear great bands live, I want to travel the world, and I want to continue to be in love with my boyfriend. I want to be happy.

Maybe after I start my new job tomorrow, I’ll have different dreams, but for now, I’m just happy being wide awake.

Annie is a freelancer who teaches ambitious professionals how to get the confidence and clarity they need to quit their jobs and start your own businesses.

Thinking of going freelance? Check out her book, From Full Time To Freelance!