In light of the shit show of unprecedented proportions that is academia at the present moment, post-ac coach Kel Weinhold and I have launched a a new 12 part series on leaving academia called, Twelve Steps To A New Job.

Welcome back to our 12 Steps to a New Job series, where we use the 12-Step model (completely secularized, we promise) to guide you through leaving academia.

I’m Kel Weinhold, productivity coach for The Professor Is In. I work with postdocs and academics at every stage of transition, and if you’re interested in talking through your options with me, you can always reach me at postac@theprofessorisin.com.

And, of course, each week on our free webinar, I’m joined by Dr. Karen Kelsky, founder of The Professor Is In and The Professor Is Out, who’s been helping academics both stay in and get out since 2011.

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Step 3: Trust the Collective Wisdom – Rewriting the Rules of Guidance and Growth

Welcome to Step 3 in our 12-step journey out of academia. If you’ve made it this far, you’ve already begun the process of identifying your values and acknowledging that the academic path—once a clear goal—might not offer the life you envisioned. Now, we take a profound, often uncomfortable step: learning to trust collective wisdom.

Let’s Be Clear: This Is Not AA’s Step 3

In the original AA 12 steps, Step 3 urges you to “turn your will and your life over to the care of God.” We’ve re-imagined this from a secular, career-reinvention lens:

Make a decision to trust the collective wisdom and resources of those who have traveled this road before you.

This step is about replacing rigid, hierarchical authority with the lived experiences and shared insights of others who’ve walked away from academia and built new lives. Not to let them define your path, but to learn from their detours, successes, and failures.

Academia Taught You Not to Trust

The academic system is structured around hierarchy and skepticism. You were taught to validate your ideas through gatekeepers—committees, journals, prestige. You’re likely deeply conditioned not to trust anything that isn’t peer-reviewed, discipline-specific, or blessed by a higher-up. So of course it feels unnatural to imagine turning to LinkedIn job descriptions or advice from a stranger who left academia for a job in tech or at a plant nursery.

But that’s exactly what Step 3 asks you to do. Not to blindly follow—but to listen, to consider, to allow wisdom to come from unexpected places.

This Isn’t About Hero Worship

Let’s be careful. Trusting collective wisdom doesn’t mean finding new people to tell you what to do. It’s not “external validation in a new outfit.” It means opening your mind to how others have navigated transitions, and learning to trust yourself through witnessing their experiences.

Because here’s the paradox: the more we learn to trust others, the more we learn to trust ourselves.

Continual, Not Continuous

This step is not about perfect clarity or unbroken commitment. It’s about coming back, over and over again, to your values. In grammar terms: it’s continual, not continuous.

NOTE: Continual refers to events or actions that occur repeatedly over a period of time, with intervals in between. Continuous, on the other hand, describes events or actions that go on without any breaks or interruptions.

You will stumble. You’ll get scared. You’ll second-guess. You might even apply for a job that contradicts everything you said you wanted. That doesn’t mean you’ve failed—it means you’re learning, experimenting, and adjusting. And that’s growth.

The Myth of Self-Sacrifice

If you’re hesitating to leave academia—or if you’ve left but feel adrift—it may be because you’ve been trained to think that good work must come at the expense of your well-being. Academia, nonprofits, classroom teaching—all fields steeped in “vocational awe”—urge you to sacrifice for the cause.

Here’s the truth: no job should demand your soul. Not the PhD. Not tenure. Not helping professions. You are not required to burn yourself out to prove your worth.

If you’re overworked, underpaid, and undervalued, the answer isn’t to work harder. The answer is to reframe your relationship to work—and to yourself.

Concrete Practices This Week

You asked for something concrete, so here it is:

1. Return to your values. Review what you wrote in Steps 1 and 2.
2. Pick 3 core skills. They could be research, writing, project management—whatever you’re good at.
3. Search for jobs. Go on LinkedIn and plug in those skills along with the city or region you’d like to live in.
4. Observe your reactions. Notice when you think, “I’m not qualified,” or “I can’t do this.” Write those reactions down.
5. Ask the community. Post anonymously in The Professor Is Out Facebook group. “I found this job. It requires X, Y, and Z. I only have X. Should I apply?” Let the collective weigh in.

Bonus: Try limiting your workweek to 40 hours. No nights. No weekends. Notice what happens. What falls through the cracks? What stories do you tell yourself about why you “can’t” stop working?

This Is Not Linear

You are not building a career one tidy block at a time. You are improvising. Adapting. Revising your values and needs as you go. The PhD wasn’t a mistake. It was what made sense to you then. Let it be part of your story—not the whole of it.

So this week, ask yourself:

What would a job look like where I didn’t sacrifice my weekends, my sleep, my body, or my joy?

Write that job down. Name it. Visualize it. Go looking for it.

And remember: others have been where you are. You don’t have to go it alone.