Should I Quit my Job? Four Signs that it’s Time for a Career Change
Sarah Jones (Leadership, Team, Women’s Leadership Coach)
Transformational Leadership & Team Coaching for Progressive Senior Leaders & Organisations l Reduce conflict, stress, burnout l Increase confidence, resilience, performance, profitability l Biopharma PR & Advocacy Expert
We all have days at work where we feel like going home and not coming back. But when can you tell that enough is enough, and that it’s time to move onto a new job? If you start to experience the symptoms below, it’s time for a change.
Four Signs that it’s Time for a Career Change
Changing careers can be a daunting task. It’s often easier to keep slogging through a job that you don’t love, then to make a change to something new and unknown. But when you begin to suffer day after day, you owe it to yourself to take a chance and make a change.
The “Monday Morning Feeling” never ends
We all get that uncomfortable feeling occasionally, on Monday mornings or Sunday nights, when we feel that we just aren’t ready to go back to work yet. Maybe we feel that we just aren’t rested enough to face the day, or that we didn’t mentally prepare for what we’ll have to “put up” with.
When the stress from work starts to make you feel like you don’t want to get out of bed, and that you have no motivation to get through another day, it’s time to make a change. It’s fine and normal to have off days—sometimes you need to take a day off to re-calibrate—but when you are feeling worn out and not wanting the weekend to end every week, every day, it takes a toll on your mind and body.
Not giving the best of yourself at work
If you aren’t motivated, and feel you aren’t being challenged or even utilised, you won’t give your best performance at work. Giving a half-hearted performance, just to meet your minimum requirements can be debilitating. It makes people feel disrespected, unappreciated, and stressed out. Most motivated people want to use their skills and talents, want to build on those skills, and want to be successful for doing so.
If you’re bored, frustrated, and not using your skills to their best effects, you are not going to be a happy employee. When these stressors give way to conflict, poor work performance, or unhealthy coping mechanisms, they have gone on far too long.
Not growing
Your job shouldn’t just be a place to fill the time in your day and then get paid. You should be using your individual, valuable skills, and also building those skills. If you can see that you aren’t growing in a meaningful way at your current job, and see no way to remedy that, it might be time for a change.
Many of my clients struggle with this, thinking that if they just try harder, take on more responsibility, learn more outside of work, that maybe they could make this role work for them. Maybe they could feel like they are building and growing. Sometimes that might be the case, but only if you have the support you need. If you’re putting in extra time, extra effort, and extra work, without being properly supported and acknowledged, you are only going to end up feeling bitter and resentful. If, despite your best efforts, you are not in a position to learn, grow, and feel empowered, then you owe it to yourself and your future to move on.
Unhappiness creeping into your whole life
When you are unhappy at work, it has a tendency to creep into other aspects of your life. If you’re at the point that your work is draining the joy out of your life, it is past time for a change.
When you begin to notice the stress and negative emotions that you absorb throughout your workday are factoring into your relationships and your personal life, it’s imperative that something changes.
The stress of being constantly unhappy in your work life can have disastrous effects on your life. Make sure that you still have the ability to enjoy the things you love in life, and that you can still prioritise your health and psychological well-being. People who are happy at work are happy and productive in other parts of their life as well. If you aren’t feeling happy and productive, you need to make a change and allow yourself to be the best you can be.
Take the Next Step
If any of these examples speak to you, it’s time that you start making plans for a change. Start by assessing your transferable skills and skills gaps. Aligning your career with your internal goals and priorities will help you to feel fulfilled and productive. Finding a career coach is also a great idea when you are exploring new options. Expand your network, and begin researching a career that will make you happy.
Conclusion
When you find that your work is pulling you down, and not allowing you to be the best version of yourself, you need to move on. When you feel like you never want the weekend to end, and you don’t have the motivation to give your best effort, you belong somewhere else. When your skills are going unused, and you feel that there is no room for you to grow, you owe it yourself to make a change. When unhappiness seeps into other areas of your life, and you start to lose interest in the things that you used to enjoy—move on. Life is too short to stay in a job that you hate. Take the first steps towards happiness and fulfilment today.
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