There are times you want to quit your job, even if you don’t have another one lined up, but you wonder if it’s completely foolish.
It doesn’t often feel cut and dried, with so many factors that weigh in, but there are times when you should stop second-guessing yourself and give your thoughts about leaving some real consideration.
In this post I’ve outlined 6 times that you should stop and take stock of the situation rather than just blowing off the idea as just a case of the Mondays.
While I never make a recommendation to leave or stay, even with my clients that I’m working with 1 to 1 (ultimately, they make the decision, even though it’s well thought out and thoroughly discussed), there are times when I think it’s worth considering.
Decide If It’s Time To Quit Your Job
1. Your boss is straight from Hell.
You might think that your boss is bad, but if you think he or she is straight from hell, it’s time to think about quitting your job.
Anything abusive, or even things that truly undermine your confidence, or if your boss is stealing your work or degrade you in any way, it shouldn’t be taken lightly.
You’ll have to decide the balance between how much you can take while looking for something new and when the line has been crossed and you just can’t take it anymore.
2. You’re bored like you were that time sitting next to your great uncle at that party last year.
Remember when you couldn’t get away from your great uncle, and he just kept droning on about the weather patterns in the midwest? And you were bored to tears, until you snuck into the bathroom to check the football score?
If your job feels like that – a painful exercise every day that you just can’t wait to be done with, it’s really time to think about quitting your job, even without a safety net.
You may try smiling through your pain, but giving notice that you quit your job may not be as painful as having to sit there and pretend you’re having a good time being on a team or performing tasks that you just can’t get behind anymore.
There is a real value in being engaged at work which you can’t underestimate. If you’re not feeling it, moving on should be a real option to consider.
3. You’ve got better things to do.
Always treat people with respect. But if you do have better opportunities out there, or even if you believe you can create better opportunities for yourself, you should think about quitting.
Many people feel an obligation to their current employer, and while loyalty does have its place, you shouldn’t place it above your own career interests, especially in a job market where employers are not loyal to you in the gold watch kind of way of yesteryear.
Get out there and do what you want and need to do in your career to be happy and successful.
4. It’s impacting your health and wellbeing.
Maybe it’s not your boss but it’s something else that is making you hate your job, and it’s really getting to you.
It could be any number of things, from terrible co-workers, to disagreeing with the strategy of the company, to feeling unheard, a bad commute, or no work/life balance.
There are a hundred reasons why you might not like your job, but if any of them start to make you cross the line into something that takes a physical toll on you, it’s time to start to think about quitting.
5. You think something’s fishy.
If you think there’s something up at work that’s illegal or immoral, and you just don’t want to be a part of it, you probably want to quit immediately. You may also be obligated to report it.
It may be a real relief to get out of a workplace that has things going on that are fishy. In this situation, there may be no other solution.
6. You’re sure you’ll be fired.
If you see the writing on the wall, sometimes it’s better to leave on your own terms than it is to wait for the axe to fall. You can tell future employers that you left on your own terms rather than being fired, which saves you from having to explain your firing.
When You Shouldn’t Quit Your Job
To Motivate Yourself Into Finding A New Job
Some people are sick of their jobs and find the job search process tiring. They can’t find the motivation to really look for something new, and they think if they quit, they’ll have no choice but to dedicate themselves full time to looking. They also think that now they’ll have a free schedule so they can dedicate themselves to looking for a job.
Guess what? It’s almost always a bad idea. Quitting your job is almost never motivating, it’s demoralizing, and you quickly realize that the free time you had to look for a job is eaten up by going to the gym and running errands.
Even if you think you’re way more disciplined than that, what you’ll see instead is that no one is around to network with you. . . they’re all at work. So you don’t actually have 40 hours a week of job hunting that you can do.
Don’t Quit Your Job Without Examining The Problem – Especially If You’ve Seen It Before. . .
We all end up in patterns in our lives that feel familiar, and our jobs are no different. If you’ve ended up in a job situation that isn’t working for you, especially a job situation you’ve seen before, like a domineering boss, a co-worker who always steals your thunder, or something else that makes you say, “Wait a minute, this keeps happening to me. . . ” You need to examine the situation to understand what is going on and why. Only when you do that do you have a chance to break your old patterns and move on to a job that is different and better.
Should You Quit Your Job Without Another Job?
Obviously, in an ideal world, you shouldn’t quit your job without a new one, because it’s scary to think about that gap between paychecks and to wonder how big it might get.
But there are times, as outlined above, when the pain of being in a job outweighs that risk, especially if you have backup plans such as a way to bring in some side income or some savings.
Ultimately, if you do quit without another job, your goal will be to have a killer job search strategy so you can get back to work doing something you want to be doing (otherwise what was the point of leaving?) fast.