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It’s that time of year where everyone contemplates the months just gone, and the year coming up. 2015 has lots of exciting things in store for me, but the biggest change is that I’m starting a new job in January! Handing in your notice is a pretty daunting prospect, and it’s by far an easy process. Well before accepting another job and moving forwards in your career you have to first establish if leaving your current job is actually a good idea. There’s conflicting feelings flying all over the place.
Ultimately, I was scared to go onto something new. I was in my most recent job for almost three years and was only the second hire to team. Together, me and my manager built our team up and were joined along the way by some amazing and inspirational people. In fact, it was then these very people that made my decision to leave even harder. As a colleague said to me, ‘If my career was based around the people I work with, then I’d have a big tick next to this job.’ I have made some fantastic friendships with the people I sit with eight hours a day, five days a week. It is going to be very strange not seeing them every day, and I felt genuinely guilty handing in my notice as it felt like I was letting them down.
So how do you really know when you should quit your job? This is how I came to the decision:
– You go to bed the night before and genuinely do not want to go to work the next day.
I’m talking beyond the Monday blues and general ‘I want a lie-in’ miseries. This is a feeling in the pit of your stomach that actually makes you dread going into the office.
– You’re not inspired.
I found it so hard to actually be interested in the work coming my way and that made me very unhappy. It was a true realisation that I didn’t want to be doing what I was doing, whereas previously in the very same job I had felt excited and interested in every new brief that came my way.
– You shun responsibility.
Be honest, are you dodging that phone call or marking that email as ‘read’ because you just don’t want to deal with it? It may sound unprofessional, but when you want to leave a job you will find any excuse to not deal with whatever is thrown at you.
– You constantly clock watch.
In times gone by, there just weren’t enough hours in the working day for me. Before I knew it, it would be 3pm and I hadn’t even considered lunch. I was busy and I loved it. When I started losing the love, I was looking at the clock every ten minutes and despairing that it was only 11am.
– You get jealous of other people’s jobs.
You may not want their job exactly, but I would be speaking to friends who work in all sorts of industries and be annoyed that they were actually enjoying what they were doing. Yes, they work hard and have their challenges, but ultimately they were finding their days rewarding whereas I was totting up the amount of life admin I could be doing if only I wasn’t at my desk.
When you hand your notice in there are mixed feelings of sadness and relief, but just don’t get complacent and stay where you are just because it’s easy. The next challenge is just around the corner!
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