![]() Now that restrictions have eased, it is easy to underestimate the impact of the disruption and stress of the past 18 months. If, however, your dissatisfaction is more recent – say, since February 2020 – “a lot of that is pandemic-related,” says Chambers. It is easy to keep giving it another six months, he says – “but there’s a reason why you’re feeling that way”. If it’s been years, predating the pandemic, Chambers suggests it might be time to act. It may help to think about when you were last consistently happy at work. “Knowing that it’s not the first time you’ve taken a step in your career can make another one feel less daunting,” says Chambers. Reflecting on your past can help put your present situation in perspective and lay a blueprint for your future – if only by underscoring your own agency. How did I get here?Īs you consider your next steps, it can help to zoom out to see those that led you here: why did you take this job? What has been your career path so far? She suggests writing down every thought and feeling you have about your job for 10 days. “The ‘why’ question is where everyone starts, but the first answer you give yourself is rarely what’s really going on,” says Eleanor Tweddell, the founder of the post-redundancy coaching consultancy Another Door. Drill down not only into your role and responsibilities, but particular projects, pay, potential for progression, workplace culture, workload, colleagues, company values and any recent restructures or takeovers. The more precise you can be about the cause, the greater clarity you will have. ![]() “What are your frustrations? What’s that primary sticking point, the one thing that’s really tipped the balance so this question has become prominent in your mind?” “Otherwise it’s going to have an increasingly negative impact on your health.”īut, he adds, you must be brutally honest with yourself. ![]() If it feels like a question of self-preservation, “something that is effectively pivotal to you feeling like a human being, it’s almost as if that decision needs to be made for you,” he says. If work is causing you significant mental or physical distress, perhaps because of bullying or chronic overwork, it may be that you have to quit, says the psychologist Lee Chambers. Here are 17 questions to ask yourself to help you clarify your thinking – and your future. And really, at some level, maybe we want it to be devastating.But how do you know if you are in desperate need of change or just in a pandemic fug. Seen in that light, leaving a job feels less like a business decision to sell our labor to a different bidder and more akin to a breakup where we’re saying, “I no longer like you the same way I used to, and for some time now I’ve been planning to leave you.” Then throw in that we all want to think we’re indispensible and will be terribly difficult to replace, and we assume we’re delivering devastating news. We assume this runs both ways and that therefore when we choose to walk away from a job, we’re signaling a kind of personal rejection to and of others. All of the things that are supposed to be “just business”-how much we’re paid, what kind of recognition our projects get, how frequently the boss cancels meetings with us-actually feel like pointed reflections on our worth. In part, I suspect it’s that work simply feels incredibly personal to us. So why is it that so many people dread the prospect of quitting a job, even when the job has made them miserable and even when they’re leaving for something much better (higher pay, more interesting work)? And if that does happen, you can calmly reply, “I’ve given it a lot of thought and this is the right decision for me, but let’s talk about what I should do between now and my ending date to help with the transition.” And if things get really bad, you can always resort to, “I’d like to work out my remaining time and leave things in good shape, but if we can’t work together effectively, should we move up my ending date?” But if your boss explodes in rage because you’ve resigned, you’ve just gotten some awfully well-timed validation of your decision to leave. Of course, there are some managers who react poorly to resignations, taking it as a personal betrayal rather than a business decision. They might really wish you were staying, they might curse the timing, they might even think you’re making the wrong move, they might initially act somewhat brusque and miffed-but they will not ultimately hold a grudge against you for leaving. But while managers might have a terrible sinking feeling of “oh, crap, nooooo” when they hear the news, reasonable bosses do understand that people move on. Sometimes it’s even genuinely upsetting and, in rarer cases, it can legitimately be a major setback for the company. From the manager’s side of the desk, yes, it’s disappointing to lose a good employee, and yes, it’s an inconvenience to have to hire and train someone new. ![]()
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