Quitting.
There’s something about quitting that doesn’t sit right with me.
Everyone always says, “never quit and never give up,” but sometimes you just have to.
After graduating from college I worked at a company that programs music and produces music-related content for digital cable television. When I first started, I loved my job. I was 22 and excited because after all, my job was dealing with music all day. What’s not to love?
I spent my time there being the best employee I could be. I’d come in early, work late and sometimes work weekends. I was grateful for my job, but my feelings of excitement faded fast.
Here’s why.
There came a point where I wanted to investigate the travel, tourism and hospitality industry as a field to get into work wise because I always loved traveling, meeting people from different cultures and backgrounds and wanted to learn more about why destinations chose to promote themselves the way they do.
As a result, I decided that the best next step for me was to go back to school full-time to learn more about the overall industry. However, I stayed at my job another year because of the stability it provided.
And I stayed because I was scared of the unknown.
Now unfortunately, something happens when you become clear about what you really want. What you don’t want seems to become unbearable.
Everyday I would come to work literally sick to my stomach. I was so depressed, I wanted to move ahead, but I kept listening to everyone’s opinion about it being hard to get a job so I shouldn’t quit the one I already have.
The nail in the coffin was when I overheard some of my coworkers talking about how long they worked at the company. One of them said, “What was supposed to be a two-year job turned into 10 years.” I sat there thinking, “That is NOT going to be me. There is something more for me, I just have to find it, and I won’t find it being stuck here.”
With that, I gave my two weeks’ notice. I felt like the world was being lifted off my shoulders. I was nervous and excited at the same time.
As I went into the next chapter of my career, I didn’t have everything planned and I definitely didn’t have all of the answers. But all I knew was that I wanted to have a career in the travel, tourism and hospitality industry and in order to have that I had to let go of my fear of the unknown that was holding me back.
Many people asked me…
Why do you want to work in tourism?
What could you possibly do in the travel, tourism and hospitality industry?
What’s so great about the industry?
Well there are 5 reasons why I was interested in the travel, tourism and hospitality industry all those years ago that continue to be good reasons why you should work in travel, tourism and hospitality today.