We probably have every day at work when we think “What am I really doing here?”
Those moments of reflection help us put things in perspective and even make us remember why we once decided to take this job at all. But it is when those reflections begin to consume far too much of your time and energy that you have to say stop – and hello and thank you.
Here are 36 signs that it’s time to quit:
1. That feeling you had when you started your job is gone. You feel no passion and wake up every morning without wanting to kick off the blanket and get started. You are constantly stressed, negative and / or unhappy at work. If you get anxiety just by thinking about work, then it is a clear sign that it is time to move on. Your partner and friends may even have pointed out that you do not look as happy anymore. Your performance at work has also been affected. If you are no longer productive, even though you have the ability to do the job required, it’s time to throw in the towel.
2. Your job is no longer useful. A career is more than just something that ensures that you can pay your bills and put food on the table. Your position can lead you to new successes. But if you have grown out of a job that once helped you gain new knowledge, new skills or new experiences, you will soon be sitting restlessly drumming with your fingers on the table.
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3. Your immediate boss has lost his appetite. Many managers have become bitter and tired. When you come up with new ideas, he just stands there as a stumbling block and mutters something about “it’s impossible”. This is dangerous for your career. If you can not get past the boss, it is often better to find a new boss. You have lost the respect of your current bosses. You can no longer relate to them and find no personal connection to how and where they control the ship.
4. The company sinks and the management is not interested in rescuing the ship. Put on your life jacket and abandon the wreck.
5. You really dislike those you work with, including your boss. You have tried to solve the problems again and again, but got nowhere. You do not like your colleagues. There are people who like to stay at a job, even though they have to commute for an hour and a half just because they like their colleagues so much. But there are also those who commute an hour and a half to a workplace where there are no colleagues to enjoy or enjoy. Do you like your colleagues?
6. You do not fit into the corporate culture and / or you no longer believe in the company. You feel that there are ethical and moral differences in how the company and how you think you should work. Sometimes it takes a while to adjust to a new job. But if you’ve been in the same position for a while now and still feel you do not fit in, it’s time to give up.
7. Your learning plateau has been reached and you are stuck. Keeping track of the level of learning at work is important for everyone, but perhaps especially important for you who are younger. As you know, learning is an investment in itself for the future. More knowledge gives you a basis to acquire even more knowledge. The scary thing here is that you may get paid well and the job feels okay, but what the company may be doing at the same time is pay you to accept a much lower intellectual growth. One day, you may find that you have lost competitiveness. You will not be the best anymore. You will not be able to fall in love with new projects. It’s so cozy and comfortable here. You have become complacent and stuck in tired but safe routines. Surely it’s scary to be too comfortable?
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8. You shit in what you sell. Forget the salary, forget your job and your fantastic colleagues. If you can not invest in what you sell, how can you see yourself becoming a successful leader in the company?
It’s not fair to either you or the company if you can not 100% support what you sell.
Do you still have your passion? A strong passion and a strong commitment to the well-being of your company is extremely important for you to be able to maintain a steep learning curve. Passion and a meaningful job provide motivation for long-term learning and ensure that you end up in flow much more often. One of the world’s most famous psychologists, Mihayli Csikszentmihalyi, developed the theory behind “flow” as a state in which you like so much what you do that you do not care about (or even notice) the time that passes. Mihayli notes that more flow generally leads to greater happiness. It is difficult to stay motivated or to end up in flow in the long run if you do not believe in and like what you do. It is also difficult not to get better at what you do if you love your job.
9. You do not have a good balance between work and leisure and notice that you spend less and less time with your family because of work. You have no time for yourself anymore. If you have worked so many late nights that you no longer feel like a human being and you know that there is no end in sight, then ask yourself if it is really the intention that you should continue to close your eyes because you no longer have one quality of life in your life.
10. Your knowledge is not used. Management does not see, or does not want to see, that you have more to offer than what you have already contributed for a long time. You have been overlooked when it comes to promotions and your attempts to get ahead have failed.
11. Your duties have changed / become larger, but the salary has not kept up. Sometimes there are good reasons for this, for example if your new job teaches you things that you need to move forward, but if you just got more to do without getting paid for the effort, it will only ruin your energy.
12. You do not get a hearing for your ideas. If you no longer feel that the company values your input, then there is no reason to stay.
13. You are stuck. If you are not growing or learning something new, then it may be time to move on. Once you have grown over the edges of your current position and there are no opportunities to advance, it can be a sharp opportunity to find a new challenge.
14. You’re stressed. Your mental health is starting to get worse. If your current job gives you so much stress that you are afraid of your health, then get out of there very quickly. If you wake up at night after nightmares about work or if you have difficulty falling asleep because you are constantly worried about work – yes, you understand yourself how unhealthy it is. In these situations, it does not matter if you earn SEK 200,000 a month (I have done it at work that killed me inside), but it is not worth it. Not a single bite.
15. Something better for your soul emerges.
16. When the pension feels far too far away. I personally do not even have the strength to think about retirement in the way many people start doing already at the age of fifty. I want to continue working. I love my job. But if you are under forty years old and can not stop dreaming of retirement, then it’s time to change jobs.
17. You are completely uninterested in the job you do. There are few things that are as emotionally draining as a job that has nothing to do with your goals or personal interests. It does not matter what you get paid, you will never be able to fully enjoy life or be the best in your industry if you depress yourself with apathy all day. That apathy is also guaranteed to spread to all other areas of your life.
If you do not do what you love to do, you will never reach your full potential.
You will only persevere in a “job” every day and not enjoy a place where you can grow and develop.
There are certainly many reasons why you are probably more stuck than having speed ahead:
You long for something else.
You may love your job, but suddenly you realize that you no longer have any opportunity to get up in the company.
Everything in the whole world seems better than what you do now. When your friend breaks his leg and can not work for a week and you feel jealous, then it is alarm bells that ring.
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18. You do not want your boss’s job. One reason you had to stay is that you know that the company recruits internally to higher positions. But when you discover that you do not want your boss’s job, it’s probably time to move on before one of your colleagues gets your boss’s job.
19. Your boss needs a devil expulsion. You are publicly criticized. We all need constructive criticism sometimes, a little push forward. But we need to hear that in private. Life is too short to wait for the next time you are criticized or humiliated in front of other people. If your boss is constantly panicking and making you sleep poorly and constantly feeling inadequate, then run. Run screaming from your workplace.
20. Your role and responsibilities have not changed at all in several years.
21. You do not remember the last time you learned something new about your area. You have no use for your knowledge. If you are really good at something and your knowledge is not part of your job, then you have a problem.
22. A machine can soon do your job. Your role will become redundant when your knowledge can be replaced with new technology.
23. You will not receive any positive feedback. It does not matter what you do, the boss is never satisfied.
24. People who were hired after you have been promoted faster than you. You are being treated unfairly. You notice that your colleagues get chances that you do not get.
25. You are no longer invited to important meetings or discussions.
26. Your development talks are no longer development talks. The boss is not interested in your career goals. He / she does not ask about your future plans and in other words there is no support from above for you to move forward.
27. No one asks for your help or advice. You do not get time with the boss to drive your projects forward, instead they just seem to go up in smoke. You may not receive e-mail replies or be ignored in other ways. You feel like a number in the queue. All are replaceable. Everyone works to get paid. But people also want to work for reasons other than just money. They want to work for people who respect, need and appreciate them. If your boss never stops to talk a little, check if you need help or just say something nice, it’s a sign that you’re just a cog in a big, hopeless machinery.
28. You spend a lot of time complaining about work and when you tell stories about work, you are always the victim, never the hero.
29. The future does not feel appealing. Imagine your working life in five years after you have come a long way in your career. Are you happy? Does your boss’ job feel like something you would like? If there is no attractive position to strive for in the company, then it can be good to keep your eyes open for new opportunities elsewhere.
30. You do not think you can do anything else. That is the best reason to change jobs. Then you might be thinking: “I earn too much on my current job, I can not find anything comparable” or “There are no other jobs where I live.” Or “I’ve spent way too much time on this company (or my career or the industry).” Or “I do not have what it takes to start my own. “All those things are true – if you let them be.
31. You can not see the future clearly. All jobs must lead somewhere: to a better job or at least to increased responsibility, new knowledge and new challenges. Tomorrow must be able to offer a chance to be positively different. A good manager works to improve the company’s future. A good manager also works to improve the future of his employees.
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32. You live for the weekends. You feel that you are more alive as a person when you are free than during working hours. You are constantly looking for opportunities for longer leave, earlier homecoming and you plan your holiday more during working hours than at home. You do not care about how the company is doing.
33. The salary is still. You have done the same job for more than two years without being promoted, received a salary increase or increased responsibility. Some people enjoy working with the same thing year after year, but it is impossible to get away from the fact that they are stuck in a dead end.
34. You’re starting to get lazy. If you normally work hard, arrive early and leave late, but notice that your motivation lately gives you the same energy, if you start looking at the clock and long for the journey home shortly after lunch – yes, there are clear signs that you also got stuck.
You may also have started to underperform. Despite your capacity, you will notice that you consistently deliver less than required because you have lost the spark. It may also be that you no longer perform as you want because the requirements are too high or because you cannot handle office policy. No matter what the situation, it is a good idea to start looking for a job where your performance can be top notch.
35. You live in chronic insecurity. This point needs to be nuanced a bit because basically all companies always live insecurely. But some are so stuck to the mild degree that uncertainty has also eaten into the culture of the company. This applies to companies that are always for sale, that are constantly making cuts or that are living in a shrinking market. It is a good idea to stay and fight to save the company, but it is rather smarter to try to save yourself. There is a reason why high-performing employees leave companies in change. They know that it is better to make an effort at a company where the management has a vision and clear plans for the future.
36.Something is going on. If you are lucky, you will receive a warning and time to prepare for the disaster. But in most cases, you may just have a feeling that something difficult is going on. There may have been a lot of secret hype at the company, many closed doors and a generally strange atmosphere. The top managers seem particularly busy and inaccessible – or the rumors have already reached everyone’s ears. It is not time to cover your ears and eyes and hope for the best. Go out and make sure to move on
Finally, if you are unsure – try the stone jar.
If you do not feel comfortable quitting your job, even though you feel you want to, you can try this method:
Take a jar and fill it with stones. You can decide for yourself how big the stones should be.
The more you want to quit, the bigger the rocks. Every time something happens that makes you want to resign from your job, you can remove a stone from the jar. Do this until the stones in the jar are finished. Then you make your decision.
