A gut check for anyone who's been "thinking about it" for a year

It is Sunday evening, and you have just admitted to a friend that you are "considering it," the same line you used last fall. She didn't push. She didn't need to. Twelve months of weighing options is less a decision than a delay. It is either a choice you've already made and haven't said aloud, or one you keep reversing every couple of weeks.

So tonight, in Richmond, you attempt something different. You grab a blank page and write down what has actually taken place, setting aside how you feel about it. The list ends up stretching well past what you pictured.

What is really on the line here

Staying a year past the point you should have left costs more than the year itself. It costs the version of you that recruiters in Richmond remember, the story you could tell about leaving on a high note, and the energy you would have carried into the next role. Leaving a year too soon costs a vesting date, an unfinished project and the possibility that the trouble was a rough season rather than a broken job. Both errors are real. What sets the two apart is that just one of them stays silent.

The turning point

A gut check is not a matter of mood alone. It's a tally. The warning signs are ones you already know by heart. You have been explaining them away one at a time, and those explanations get much harder to sustain when every sign sits on the same page. Twelve of them point outward. Three point inward. Be honest as you tally, since nobody else will ever see this page.

Why this carries weight in Richmond and across Central Virginia, well beyond your own household

A deloitte survey of 7,500 women in 2025 showed that a mere 5 percent intend to remain with their present employer past the five-year mark. Women aren't failing to commit. These women are deliberately declining to stay out of inertia, and those who depart on good terms are the ones who ran the numbers before acting.

Twelve indications that a change may be due

To begin. Headhunters no longer reach out to you, since you have declined their offers three separate times.

Next. You still describe your work as if it has already ended.

Then comes the third. Your "one more year" has, somewhere along the way, become a sequel.

Fourth on the list. The advocate who recruited you here has since departed for other horizons.

Number five. A fresh organizational chart was produced while you were nowhere near the planning table.

The sixth item. You have been "acting" in this role for more than six months.

Seven. Your pay increase only kept pace with rising prices, yet your manager described it as a bonus.

The eighth entry. You rehearse your meeting points in the shower and still lose the argument.

Ninth. Colleagues you once mentored now hold higher ranks than you do, and nobody can say why that happened.

The tenth. You no longer put forward suggestions, since you are sure in advance how they will be received.

Eleventh. Sunday night dread now arrives on Saturday afternoon.

The twelfth. Were this position offered to you today, you would decline it.

Three indicators that the timing may be off

One. The difficulty has a name, belongs to one person, and that person can be moved to another post.

Two. Although the last half year has been difficult, the three years preceding it were genuinely fulfilling.

Three. Your exhaustion reaches beyond this job alone, and a genuine two-week break would reveal which of the two it really is.

How to put the tally to work in Henrico, Chesterfield or wherever you live

If your first list reaches six or more entries while the second stays empty, you have your answer. Should the first list hold two or three entries alongside one from the second, what you need is a discussion rather than an exit. Hold that conversation this week: "I want to stay and grow here. What would have to shift for that to become reality, and what is the deadline?" Whatever answer comes back, or the silence that follows it, belongs on the page as well. Richmond's employers, from the Capitol to the corporate campuses in Glen Allen and Short Pump, are full of leaders who will give a straight answer when asked a direct question.

Come next October, when a friend asks where you stand, you will offer more than a vague "still thinking about it." You will offer a figure.