Firstly, I just hope you don’t feel the need to quit your job. If you’re in a good spot with the job and career, that’s fantastic. However, if you feel like you have been too afraid to approach the subject, but must, reading this through might bring in better clarity.
There’s no easy way to this: thinking about quitting a job is difficult. We spend long hours, spanning months and often years, building our careers and organizations. While being in a job that you love will motivate you to push harder and harder positively, finding yourself in a job that sucks the life out of you, in any which way, is fatal.
Have you been second-guessing if you should quit your job?
1. You constantly feel like being somewhere else, doing something else
No one should ever be surprised by the number of people who feel forced to get into professions and make career choices that are not actually choice. A lot of us snip our own passions and interests to fit the scope of ‘professional growth’, to make sure that there’s food on the table, and to remain part of a race that expects you to never slow down for yourself. Your mind, however, lingers in its own thoughts and eventually becomes a haven for regret and self-loathing.
Key take away: No matter how lucrative or taxing the job you’re at, always learn to prioritize your aspirations first.
2. You find yourself constantly stressed mentally
Irrespective of the position you hold in your organization, work stress is often considered a part of work culture and is even considered necessary for better performance, and greater results. However, if you find yourself mentally bogged down and incapable of doing more than dragging your body down to work, maybe it’s time to reconsider what this job means to you. To be engulfed by looming thoughts of the future, yourself, and an unending feeling of doom, none of this was part of your original career plan, right?
Key take away: Learn to understand what mental stress does for you personally, and accordingly decide what’s good for yourself as an individual, and the organization as a whole.
3. … And physically
In the work-life balance, we try to fit for ourselves, it’s sometimes easy to give up on things that are essential, because ‘chalta hai, what’s the big deal?’. Remember how skipping breakfast just became part of your routine? Or even more scarily, how you are now working more than two-thirds of the day, and cram eating, resting, rejuvenating, and socializing, among other things, into the remaining time? Add to this a strenuous travel routine, and you know that your life is now at a spot that is barely you, caught doing things that mean nothing or lesser to you.
Key take away: If you have been consciously ignoring your body’s responses to a lifestyle that’s taking the life out of you, maybe it’s time you paid all the attention you can to it.
4. You are a lava-lamp, flipping between saturation and no motivation
There is only so much you can continue doing in a workplace when you feel like all that you do is to no greater good or end. To find yourself stuck in the rut of a job, and one that progressively makes you feel sappier; these are signs that you either make changes to improve your work situation or think about moving out of the said job.
Key take away: If you have spent days and weeks feeling like your work is just not making any difference, talk to someone about fixing the situation, or accept that you apply your professional skills better elsewhere.
5. Every new day reminds you of a difficult work environment
Is there anything worse than getting stuck in an office where the politics is widespread, the gossip is overwhelming, the harassment is overlooked, and people seem interested in judging you for a lot more than your work? Suffices to say, in a place where you don’t even feel comfortable enough to talk to your colleagues, or a boss breathes down your neck constantly, it’s best to call it quits, and move on to better things with better people.
Key take away: Surround yourself with things and people that inspire you.
6. When the appeal of another job shines brighter than the current one
There are very few people in the world who can get hard-set into doing one kind of profession all their lives. Most of us others will always look at career opportunities as the pluralistic gateway to doing more in life, and when you do feel this feeling strongly, do not be shy to weigh all your options and make the plunge into a new career. Fair warning: it could get gruesome trying to switch career lanes, especially if you don’t think the financials of the move properly.
Key take away: Trading your current job for something that is more challenging, adventurous, or even just plain simpler is cool; just make sure you’re not landing an axe on your own foot by doing so.
7. You feel the need to continue studying
The human intellect is one that can constantly upgrade itself with newer information that can make for a better life. It is this very basic, primal attitude that separates us from the other beasts, and it is ultimately, what defines, for a lot of people, the survival of the fittest. If you feel like you must quit your job to pursue an education, at whatever level, you do that. Mind you, of all the reasons in this list, this is probably the least anyone else will identify with. Also, the one you’d get most quizzical looks for, especially if you’re older.
Key take away: While some others might think this a setback in a career graph if studying is what you want to do, this is exactly what you must do. Forget opinions and smarten away!
8. You landed a new job, and don’t know how to let go
Well firstly, it could be very wrong of you to ethically have two jobs. Besides that, with two jobs, you would feel a whole new set of disastrous outcomes, so really, don’t do it.
Key take away: Congrats on the new job. Finish your paperwork at the old job and move on!
9. More than anything on the inside, you know it
There is only so much a listicle can predict the ways and reasons you cannot continue working at a particular job. The rightest thing that you can always do is keep your options before you, see what would make the most sense for you personally, and then decide a proper schedule over which you transition your move out of the job!
Key take away: Listen to your heart. Consult with your mind. And do what feels best for you. Whatever comes your way after that, you either grin through or power through!
All the best!