Do you remember about 10 years ago when Sheryl Sandberg, who was the COO of Facebook at the time, published her book Lean In? I think it was, in part at least, a response to the debate on women opting out, especially to the voices that celebrated the women who left high-powered careers that they felt no longer worked for them. There were a lot of people who thought of opting out as an emancipatory act, while others were very critical of women leaving the careers and power positions that feminists had fought so hard for them to have. In her book, Sandberg called on women to lean in instead and make a difference, encouraging them to dream big and overcome obstacles in order to achieve their full potential. She felt that too many women weren’t doing this and she wanted to encourage women to take their rightful seat at the table. 

Sandberg did have many good points. Women do experience obstacles that prevent them from taking a seat at the table. However, due to issues of discrimination, many women can’t get a seat no matter how much they lean in. These are important issues that need to be discussed and I applaud Sandberg for championing women and encouraging them to succeed. 

But, as a result of the book, people starting thinking about opting out and leaning in as opposites. Maybe this isn’t so strange considering that the opting out debate, until I joined it, had solely been about women who leave high powered careers to become stay-at-home moms. People thought opting out was about leaving the paid work force altogether.

It is not.

What I have found in my research is that people with careers rarely opt out to stop working altogether. Opting out isn’t about dropping out. Nor is it necessarily about downshifting, quiet quitting or doing less. It can be, but mostly it’s not about the amount of work but rather having more control over when, how and when we work. It’s about choosing to leave a certain mainstream way of pursuing a career to work and live on different terms. 

People who opt out generally do so because they come to a point where they realize that they just can’t go on the way they have. Something happens that makes them see that the way they have been working just isn’t worth it and needs to stop. It can be health reasons, not being able to be there for loved ones, a clash of values at work, an identity crisis or anything really that provides a light-bulb moment that acts as a catalyst for change. It’s like the jolt that Anthony Klotz talks about in his book Jolted.

Contrary, however, to many of the types of jolts Klotz describes in his book, the people who opt out haven’t generally thought about doing it before they actually get that light-bulb moment. None of the people I have interviewed in my research dreamed about opting out nor did any of them plan to. They were all working on their careers in earnest when they realized that something had to give. In other words, they didn’t lack ambition nor the desire to have a meaningful job or career. 

Nevertheless, they opted out. 

Another thing that has been abundantly clear in my research is that not only isn’t opting out about people who don’t want to work or ‘lean in’, it really isn’t ’just’ a women’s issue either. Opting out is rather about our workplaces, our working cultures, and the expectations that we place on our employees, regardless of gender. Having said that, experiences of work are very gendered as we, in part, place different expectations on men and women. But opting out as a phenomenon is not limited to any one gender. 

Opting out is about people. It is about people who no longer want to or can work the way they have. It’s about leaving in order to create lifestyles and solutions of work that are sustainable and it’s about doing so on your own terms.

Opting out is about opting in to lifestyles and solutions for work where you have more control over where, when and how you work. It is also entails thinking about what is important to you and what you are and are not willing to give up.

In her book, Sandberg wrote, “I have written this book to encourage women to dream big, forge a path through the obstacles, and achieve their full potential.” And then later, “I hope they [my children] end up exactly where they want to be. And when they find where their true passion lies, I hope they both lean in – all the way.”

This really is not all that different from opting out and in. In fact, I would argue that this is what a lot of people who opt out and in do. They forge a path where they can finally work or live to their full potential without the constraints of a very rigid career ideal or model. 

So yes, you can both opt out and lean in. 

If you have opted out, or if you’re thinking about it, don’t listen to the people who tell you that you’re wasting your career. There are many ways to forge a career path. If there is one thing I have learned during my own career(s), it is that there are many ways to reach the same destination. You don’t have to tread the expected path. You can make your own way and create a path and a life that works for you. We are all different, why would we all want to do things in the same way?

So contrary to what many people would have you believe, opting out does not mean dropping out or giving up on yourself or your career. It might just turn out to be a very strategic career move. Only you can know.

So no, opting out or leaning in really isn’t the question.

This is an extract from a new book I’m working on: 12 Things to Consider when Opting Out