Has the time come for you to quit your job? Is it time to quit your job?
You may think about quitting every time you go to work, but do you know if you want to leave? Do you really want to leave your current role?
I Want To Leave!
If you are angry or upset about some aspect of your work, or workplace, wait until you have calmed down before you make a decision one way or the other.
Quitting your job or your career is not something to do when you are wound up.
Your motivation for your decision is important. You may be motivated to get away from that awful job. There is nothing wrong with thinking like this, but all this tells you is that you probably just want to leave. You are not thinking about where you want to go and what you want to do AFTER you quit.
If you are motivated to move towards something, you are thinking of leaving for a positive reason. You are planning ahead.
Try completing the sentence below.
“I want to leave because I want to. . . .”
There could be lots of reasons. You want to live somewhere else. You want to rethink what you are doing with your life. You want to travel. You want to change career, and so on.
If you know what you want to do once you have left your current role, so much the better.
Ask For Advice
When you are thinking about such an important decision as leaving your job, you should speak to people whose judgements you value and trust.
This can be difficult.
If you speak to colleagues at work, those people have almost certainly chosen to stay in employment. They have decided that this was the right decision for them. They may be tempted to say it is the right decision for you, too. Of course, they may be right!
I remember that when I was thinking about resigning from the post that I held, two female colleagues spent an hour one afternoon plying me with coffee and cakes whilst they exhorted me to stay put. It was madness, they both said, to resign without another job to go to. They said I was throwing away a successful career and so on.
I stayed, but only for a few months.
In those months when I was still considering my decision, I went to see a recruitment consultant. I did not ask her to help me find a new job. I went to ask her what talents someone moving from employment to self-employment must have.
Note how my thinking had advanced over the time between talking to colleagues and talking to the recruitment consultant.
The recruitment consultant said that someone who was self-employed had to manage his or her own career. Someone in self-employment has to plan for bad times as well as good times, invest in development and in new skills and take responsibility for pension planning.
She asked me if I was able to do all these things. I said I could do them all. She then said:
“You have a decision to make.”
I never saw her again but I made my decision and handed in my resignation. I left employment.
Is It Time To Quit Your Job? – A Road Map
One of my e-books is about quitting your job. The sections in it are noted below.
Use those headings to help you decide on your next steps, too.
- Is It Time To Quit Your Job?
- Avoiding The Emotional Resignation
- Finding Your Place
- Choosing Your Destination
- Getting The Timing Right
- The Right Way To Quit Your Job
- You And The Rest Of your Life
- If You Decided To Stay . . .
- The Job I Left Behind.
If you want to use these headings, they will help to keep you on the right track. Perhaps you would like to read the e-book. It is available on:
Finally
You have to decide whether you want to leave your job and are ready to take action. Avoid being pushed in one direction or another. Do you want to leave? This is the question to ask yourself. Ask, too, if you are ready to leave. Think carefully. Your answers to both questions matter.