Have you ever had the experience of dreading something, assuming it’s going to take hours and hours and be really painful, only to sit down and finish it lickety-split?

Most of the time, it’s because the stuff you have to do is simple and quick, but the emotional baggage between here and getting it done is huge.

It’s why “just write three pages a day” works when you aren’t emotionally tangled up in a project, but fails miserably when you are. It’s why making choices that feel important take forever, even when we know logically that there aren’t huge differences between the two and we’ll likely be fine either way.

Leaving is like that

The stuff of leaving — telling people, looking at what else you can do, writing job materials, applying for jobs — isn’t all that complicated, when it comes down to it. Sure, there are things you’re unfamiliar with, and things you’ve got to figure out, but the logistics are fairly straightforward, even if the proliferation of details is kind of overwhelming.

What’s hard is worrying that your adviser will be disappointed in you and trying to figure out some way to ensure she won’t be disappointed. What’s hard is being afraid you don’t have any marketable skills and beating yourself up for not doing something more practical when you had the chance. What’s hard is regretting that you spent eight years doing this thing you now don’t like and being angry that you have to start over.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t logistical questions

Even though logistics are relatively uncomplicated (hey, anything is less complicated than digging around in our psyches to untangle old patterns), that doesn’t mean they’re obvious. When we don’t know something, we don’t know it, and we’ve got to learn it. That goes double for changing contexts.

When you’re leaving academia, the way the non-academic job search works is far from obvious. How to leave without burning all your bridges is far from obvious. How to translate your academic experience into something a non-academic employer wants is far from obvious.

So it’s not that you shouldn’t spend some time figuring out the logistics. The problem comes when we spend all our time on the logistics, dithering and wondering and getting frustrated, not realizing that it’s going to go a lot better if we address the emotional underpinnings of all that spinning in place.

Anytime a logistical, practical problem is complicated (rather than complex), stop and take a breath. Ask yourself what you’re afraid will happen as a result of solving this. What could happen if you choose one way? What could happen if you choose another way? What reservations or worries are you having about the whole endeavor?

It’s easy to think that addressing the emotional part of things will make it all take longer, and there’s no time! And you have to figure it out right now!

Ironically, when you take time to actually engage the emotional piece, the practical piece often gets done in no time at all — meaning it actually took less time overall than when you tried to ignore the emotional end and force your way through the practicalities. Life is funny that way.

This is the underlying theory of the course I’m teaching next month on the non-academic job search. Yes, we’re going to talk about the logistics, and we’re going to problem solve and brainstorm and apply principles to actual situations. But we’re also going to pay attention to the fears, the anxieties, and the what ifs, because that’s where the power is.

If you’re leaving or considering leaving and you’d like some support figuring out the job search, check it out.

And the next time you notice yourself stuck on something that seems straightforward, ask yourself why. It’s so much more efficient, not to mention effective.

There’s a particular place a lot of leaving academics get tripped up: the idea of qualifications.

In academia, the goal is to become the absolute expert on a narrow slice of something. You’re the cutting edge of this research. Best-case scenario: You’re the acknowledged, world-renowned expert and everyone comes to you to understand it.

Most of the time, the question outside of academia isn’t “are you the absolute most expert, most skilled person at X?” It’s “do you have the skills and experience to do what we need done?

There’s a crucial difference there

We can always learn more. We can always experience more. That’s the whole basis of academia.

But there’s also the concept of good enough. You don’t have to have written grants and won money from every funding body in the world in order to be qualified to write grants for a non-profit. You don’t have to know everything there is to know about project management in order to coordinate volunteers. You don’t have to have a working knowledge of everything a company has ever produced in order to write their manuals effectively.

You only need to know enough. You only need to have enough experience to demonstrate your skills. That’s it.

Focus on the goal

Instead of comparing yourself to the mythical expert, look at what this position is trying to accomplish.

Can you translate complicated issues into clear and compelling reasons why your organization should be funded? Do you understand how grant proposals work? Have you written at least one? Congratulations! You’re qualified to write grants.

Can you put together a plan to meet a goal and coordinate all the moving parts to achieve it? That’s project management.

Can you translate tech-speak into something the user understands — and that answers their questions? You can write manuals.

You may not want to do any of these things, but the point still stands. All you have to do is be able to meet the goal they’ve set out — and convince them you have the requisite skills, experience, and knowledge to meet the goal.

That, of course, is the crux of the job application, but you can’t get there if you discount every opportunity because you don’t think you’re qualified.

Figure out the skills underneath your experience

Academia obscures a lot of the skills and experience we actually have, because it discounts it as service or writes it as something anyone can do. (Trust me — not everyone can write. The awful writing skills that have made you want to cry? They don’t get better.)

One way to unobscure them (reveal them?) is to map out everything you’ve done and ask yourself what skills and experience are already in there. You’re qualified for much more than you think you are — trust me.

After walking dozens of people through master resumes, I can only laugh at how many conversations I’ve had that began, “Well, you said you aren’t qualified for X, but actually you have Z, Q, and W.” And then they start laughing, too. It’s a nice thing, being able to help people see how awesome they are.