Here’s why it is so hard to quit your job—and 5 warning signs it is time to leave

Welcome to?Fast?Company?Daily, our daily newsletter on?LinkedIn, featuring a free article selected each day by our editors as well as a roundup of great advice on careers, hiring, innovation, and technology.

Visit?fastcompany.com ?for our top stories and breaking news.?First time seeing this? Please subscribe.?

Midcentury modern architecture, it seems, will never go out of style.

After suffering a blip of critical revulsion in the 1980s and early ’90s, this movement based in artful simplicity, functionality, and modernity roared back and hasn’t faded since.

But what does modernism—midcentury or otherwise—offer that makes us keep returning to it? What did its practitioners know??

Read the full story on Fast Company Premium.

Don’t miss these top stories:

• The Biden press room has a brand new lectern—and it’s a perfect metaphor for his presidency.
• Bitcoin price just hit $41,000 for the first time in 18 months.
• A back door to a 3% mortgage rate? This startup has a plan to unlock housing market affordability.

Here’s why it is so hard to quit your job—and 5 warning signs it is time to leave

By David Oxley and Helmut Schuster

Over the past several years, quitting has been on many workers’ minds. Anthony Klotz coined the phrase “The Great Resignation” to explain the 50 million people who quit their jobs in 2022 . It was a new record, beating the previous record of 48 million set the previous year.?

As a society, we are fascinated when high profile leaders unexpectedly resign . Part of our fascination with high-profile resignations is likely voyeurism. However, perhaps it’s possible we feel a little envy as they embark on some new adventure.

If you are considering leaving your job , you are not alone. Here’s how to answer the question: Is it time to quit my job??

WHY IT CAN BE SO HARD TO QUIT A BAD JOB

One of the biggest challenges most people face early in their careers is acquiring a good job . It can be one of the most difficult and traumatic transitions we make in our lives. So, naturally, once we find ourselves earning a good salary, it is natural to try to protect what we have accomplished. In the process, we may be tempted to make excuses for poor behavior, bad leadership, unhappy customers, and even a questionable company purpose.

Because of these experiences earlier in our careers, it can be easy to ignore warning signals, suppress our instincts, and forgo common sense. We may blame ourselves for an unhealthy work environment. We may even believe there is something wrong with us. All the while, a quiet voice deep inside screams “get me out of here!”

Being nervous to quit a job is entirely natural. Most of us prefer stability over uncertainty and to think the best of the people we associate with. Moreover, many of us are hardwired to believe that life requires sacrifice . The upshot, when it comes to unhealthy work situations, is we are capable of some spectacular self-delusional mental gymnastics.

THE 5 SIGNS IT MAY BE TIME TO MOVE ON

Every year, millions of people quit their jobs. However, resigning can be difficult. Some of us can stay dispassionate and detached when quitting. Others find the practice emotional. It is easy to blur our own identity and values with our employer’s .?

In our experience, there is a wide spectrum of when people reach the tipping point for changing jobs. On one end of the spectrum, opportunists will trade jobs without qualms. On the other end of the spectrum there are the marathon runners and prisoners that have a very high threshold for discomfort before they make a move. But unfortunately, staying in an unfulfilling, or toxic, job environment can not only be harmful to oneself both personally and professionally.?

Here are five variables to consider that may indicate you need to quit your job:

1. Career development: If you have been consistently denied opportunities for development, it is time to leave.?
2. Quality of your boss: If you are stuck with a horrible boss, you can’t let them hold you back.?
3. Quality of your job: If the nature of your work is mind-numbing, don’t dumb down yourself.?
4. Integrity of your employer: If your work or company crosses ethical or moral red lines, protect your integrity.
5. Market competitiveness: And, if the market is telling you, you have been consistently short changed, exchange your job for a better one. ?

SOMETIMES WE NEED HELP TO UNDERSTAND WE DESERVE BETTER?

However, for the marathoners and prisoners among us, how do we stop from persuading ourselves that we should stick with our current job or, more worryingly, that we aren’t deserving of anything better. The answer is: We need help to change the narrative in our heads.

Fortunately, there is a quick and easy process to help with this. Ask a few of your most trusted non-work-related inner circle for five minutes of their time. Simply ask them how they think you relate to your career or job satisfaction in the above listed dimensions on a scale of high, medium, or low. If they rate you low in more than one-dimension, serious thinking is required. Why? The people close to you and who care for you can only ever know how you feel about work by the way you talk about it. As a result, their perspective is a surprisingly honest mirror to what that quiet voice inside you is really saying.

Sometimes, we are too shy or embarrassed to talk about our job challenges with the very people who have our best interests at heart. This little exercise is designed to prompt a series of constructive discussions. No one conversation will be definitive, but collectively patterns will emerge.

Leaving a job can be liberating, rejuvenating, and hugely beneficial. But plan it well. Give yourself at least six to nine months’ time to build a solid plan and ideally start executing this plan while still in your current job.

Follow us on?LinkedIn ,?X ,?Instagram ,?Facebook ,?Threads , and TikTok .