Move-Away / Move-Toward Clarity Check
Before you quit, name what you're leaving behind and what you're moving toward.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 80%
Before quitting, Minshew has you separate two distinct forces: what you're trying to move away from and what you're trying to move toward. You take even 10 to 30 minutes to let the deeper reasons surface and list both — the colleague who drives you insane on one side, the financial abundance or growth you crave on the other. With that clarity you ask whether you could get what you want inside your current company through a transfer or a manager conversation, since many employers will change things to keep good people. Only then do you decide whether to negotiate now or first test your market value and line up an offer. The whole point is to avoid quitting from vague frustration and landing somewhere identical, having thrown away your relationships, credibility, and tenure.
Origin
Minshew draws this from advising countless Muse users through quit decisions and from her own winding path of leaving roles at the State Department and McKinsey before she had real clarity on what she wanted.
Core principles
- 01Away-from and toward motivations are different things and both must be named.
- 02Clarity on what you want makes it far easier to either ask for it or go find it.
- 03Quitting from vague frustration risks landing you in the same place minus tenure and relationships.
- 04Many companies will change things to keep you — but only if you can articulate the ask.
How to run it
- 1
Sit with the decision
Give yourself half an hour in the morning (or at least 10 minutes if crunched) to reflect, allowing the deeper reasons to bubble up rather than reacting in the moment.
Pro tip More time lets the non-obvious motivations surface.
- 2
Name what you're moving away from
Write down the specific things you want to leave behind — from a nails-clipping deskmate to being underpaid.
- 3
Name what you're moving toward
Separately, articulate what you're trying to move toward — more money, growth, meaning — recognizing these are distinct from the away-from list.
- 4
Test whether you can get it where you are
Ask if you could satisfy those wants internally via a transfer or a conversation with your manager or HR, since many companies don't want to lose you.
Pro tip Know exactly what would change your mind before you ask, so you can ask for it specifically.
- 5
Choose your sequencing
Depending on how economically secure you feel, either raise it with your manager right away, or first gauge your market value and get close to another offer before that conversation.
Watch out Quitting from vague dissatisfaction can leave you in a very similar spot without the relationships, credibility, and tenure of your old job.
In the wild
Minshew's cautionary scenario: someone quits from a general sense of frustration, searches, starts a new job, and realizes they're in nearly the same position — now without the tenure and relationships they'd built.
→ Recoverable but costly; getting clarity first makes it far easier to either fix things where you are or find the right next move.
Common mistakes
Conflating away-from with toward
Treating 'I hate my boss' as the same as 'I want financial abundance' muddies the decision; naming them separately reveals whether leaving actually solves the real want.
Burning the bridge on the way out
Venting destructively when you quit follows you — back-channel references surface bad exits and can cost you future offers; leave diplomatically instead.
Is it for you?
Best for
Employees seriously weighing whether to quit who want to make the decision deliberately rather than reactively.
Not ideal for
Situations involving illegal conduct where a clean structural break is warranted regardless of clarity work.
From the transcript
“sit with this question of you know what am I trying to move away from and what would I be trying to move towards and…”
“The last thing you want to do is quit a job from some sense of vague frustration ... and then realize in fact you are…”
“if you can manage to do it in a respectful and diplomatic way it will pay dividends in the long run”
From the episode
Kathryn Minshew: Crush Your Career, Beat Burnout, and Learn to Navigate the New Rules of Work
Kathryn Minshew