"I Hate my Job I’m Ready to Quit!" Making your Perfect Next Career Move.
It’s almost a month since all that news years excitement and optimism. Now you find yourself slumped over your desk with all that positivity seeming like a distant memory. However one conclusion you know for sure, is that this job isn’t right for you! You’ve become a square peg in a round hole and to add insult to injury, your home life has become miserable because of it. You‘ve had enough and you’re pondering the words Freddie Mercury once sang…. “I want to break free!”
But don’t break free just yet! Before you make that big decision to jump ship, it’s important to think things through, because more often than not, you’ll just be jumping from the frying pan, straight in to the fire!
Over the years, a large percentage of people who I’ve coached, have made the mistake in the past; they’ve left their previous jobs because they didn’t like their boss, didn’t like their colleagues, found it boring, the inflexible working hours, that long commute and Debra in Accounts! Can’t stand her! …the list can literally go on and on! (By the way, I apologise to any Debra’s reading these, it was the first name that came to mind, and I know it’s not fair, but I have to say it sounded so right!)
Now it’s good to know the things you don’t like, but more often than not, there’s no guarantee that those issues are magically going disappear in your new job. Despite being all the smiles at the interview, your new boss and colleagues could be worse, the work – just as inflexible and to top it all off, those promises of career progression, turned out to be straight out lies just like the last job. The cycle starts again, only in this case you’ve now become disheartened by it all. The idea of having to deal with recruitment agencies and go to interviews and risk the same fate makes you lose all hope! Maybe job mediocrity was just meant to be!
So how do you avoid this fate? Well it really requires a bit self-reflection and contemplation; something in a modern bustling society we’ve slightly forgotten. Our brains are constantly occupied by watching TV or browsing the net. Even the once self-reflective commute on the train or bus is now preoccupied by Candy Crush, forwarding memes and thinking of a witty comment to write on someone’s Facebook wall.
Now I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with these things, we all need time to relax, socialise and disengage, but it’s important to give some time to reflect about your future!
So what specific things should you reflect about? From my experience consider the following!
- What makes you happy?
- What do you enjoy about your current job?
- What motivates you?(Now don’t say your family, we’re talking about you and just you!)
- What things do you look forward doing most when you get up in the morning?
By reflecting on these questions, it will eventually give you a much clearer idea, and once you have your answers, you can then ask yourself that crucial question….Why?- “Why does it make me happy?”
When you ask yourself ‘why’, you are essentially carving out a better understanding of yourself as a person and what really makes you tick. Once you start going through this process you might start to realise that the job (or a career path) which you thought was a good fit, isn’t, and a different career path or job is actually what you really require. This process allows you to identify the deeper root causes of your desire to leave your current job, and for many of my clients over the years it’s quite an empowering, yet slightly daunting and liberating experience.
Now in your new job, the things that you don’t like become less relevant; your new job might have a larger workload, but you don’t seem to mind so much, because you love your job. That irritating Boss becomes far less irritating and those colleagues you don’t like, well they become a distant noise in the back ground!
This process of self-reflection and asking “why” could take you a day or even months, but it’s better to go through this process before making the big jump, to give you that clarity; instead of running away from the things you hate, why not run towards the things you love. Take control! – Put yourself in the drivers’ seat! Happy Job hunting!…..Or should I say self-reflecting!!!
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