Comments

Quitting: 3 Reasons To Quit Your Job, … and 10 Reasons Not To… — 15 Comments

  1. I find this post is not ringing true for my personal situation of working for twenty years in jobs that did not suit me. I resonate with all the ten ‘reasons’ and they certainly were not ‘excuses’, but a mindful realisation and final reason to quit my job. Every ‘reason’ was carefully considered over the twenty years and changes made in my approach and frame of mind before I left. They were reasons to change my career and not excuses…I do not resonate with the three reasons to quit either. I tried all of them too and they did not work for me either, so I quit my job.

    However, you raise some interesting points to consider before you jump ship…

    • Hey Lisa,

      Happy New Year!!

      Interesting & of course the great thing about life is that we don’t all have to agree, in fact it’s often better when we don’t because that’s when we learn and interesting discussions happen.

      So I’m interested, can you give an example of a reason which doesn’t fall into one of the 3 categories I give above, i.e. it’s not something better, it’s not because you had to (other priorities in life that were more important) and it’s not because it was temporary?

      • I chose to quit my job because I explored all the reasons (not excuses) you have detailed, I also tried a years sabbatical… and my work and outlook in work did not improve. I did not ‘have to’ do anything. I quit my job with no firm direction or clear path to something better.

        Therefore, I chose to quit my job and not because of ‘excuses’…

          • Hey Lisa,

            but then surely that’s the same as my reasons 1 & 3 – you quit your job for something better, i.e. if, as it sounds, you were making an objective choice when you didn’t have to then it must have been for something better? unless it’s reason 2 – health or family or anything else more important in life, otherwise why would you choose to quit (assuming you’re saying it was the right choice)?

            re: the sabbatical, fair enough – you tried the temporary solution and it didn’t improve anything, but even that is a good thing to have done because at least then you know, right?

            Or am I missing the point?

            p.s. the ‘excuses’ part of this post is deliberately a little provocative, but the point is that these are often excuses that are used rather than real reasons (in most cases) – if they are reasons, I still think they fit into one of the 3 ‘reasons’ above, then I accept they are no longer excuses, but they fit into the 3 reasons above – e.g. if someone was stressed to the extent that it becomes an issue where their health is suffering, then of course their health is more important than the job, but then that is ‘reason’ #2 above – some things in life are more important than work/life takes over, whether for yourself or for your loved ones.

            • Fair points….I mainly did not resonate with the provocative ‘excuses part’…hence my reaction. I am not sure if I have quit for something better…but am hopeful that It will be. I have simply activated hope in myself, as it was not coming from anywhere else in my life at the time…I am trying another fork in the road…and loving every second of it…once I made decision to leave my job.

              Thanks for the interesting and thought provoking post…

              • Hiya,

                well I do value your opinion Lisa and I know you as someone who is genuine and objective so I know when you say for you they’re not excuses, you mean it and I believe you.

                The fact is that lots of people do make excuses which are not really reasons and my point is when they’re not one of the 3 reasons I give at the top of the post, then that’s probably what they are, just excuses for not dealing with what really needs to be dealt with.

                This can lead to people thinking the grass is greener on the other side and for example ending up in a more stressful situation than when they started because they thought they hated their job but in fact they didn’t hate it so much after all or there was a problem there they just didn’t confront or deal with – Or they thought they had a problem with their boss but in actual fact the same thing happens in their next job and the next one – Or they were upset with the long hours but they never bothered to see if they could actually change that and perhaps it would have been fine etc etc.

                Hopefully that makes sense.

                As I said, I know in your case they weren’t excuses but then I think also the examples you gave actually do fit in with my above ‘reasons’.

                I was trying to make a point but your comments have made me realize that maybe I should have been clearer that if they don’t fall under the reasons above then they are (probably) excuses.

                though I may leave the (probably) out as I still want to be a tiny bit provocative 😉

                anyways I do appreciate your comments and I’ll have a think about whether I should make that point a bit clearer…

  2. I’m glad you put that little caveat in your first excuse or reason not to quit. I’ve had some really crappy jobs in the past. Admittedly, I could have done something about it to make one or two jobs a little better, but at least two jobs were miserable simply because of the working conditions. And by that I mean, the bosses were just terrible terrible people. I may be exaggerating a little when I say that one employer was sadistic, but at the time, that is what I would have told you about them.

    You’re so right that you need to have a plan going before you quit. I’ve quit without another job lined up before, but I also had a lot of money saved up to tide me over. I don’t recommend it for most people. In the end though, you have to find a job that allows you to have a good work/life balance and makes you happy enough to go to every day.

    • Great comments Steve,

      I couldn’t agree with what you say here more (and sorry for the delay in getting back to you on this particular comment!) – the having a little money set aside is what I’d call a ‘runway’ but that will soon run out if you don’t have a plan (and ideally an exit strategy in case the next step doesn’t pan out as you thought it would).

      The post was deliberately a little provocative but I stand by the 3 reasons to quit, in the end I think every decision comes down to one of those 3 things if not it’s most likely (not always but most likely) an excuse.

      In the case of sadistic bosses, then it fits into reason number 1 and if the boss is so bad they are affecting your health, then number 2 also – i.e. your health is more important.

      … and I agree your work is half of your life so you might as well enjoy it (as I’ve actually written about here: Realize That Work is Half of Your Life – So Enjoy It!!– it’s really important for so many reasons to make the most of your work, whatever it is

  3. Alan,
    I’m pretty good at quitting my jobs.

    But seriously, when one works so hard and so many hours, there also comes this whole lifestyle. it’s a vicious cycle cause you have to have the house and of course the clothes for work and the gas and more more more.

    Honestly I don’t know what i was thinking before. I have serious gaps in my past where i can’t remember entire years because all i did was work and commute to work and then rush home to feed the kids.
    I just accepted it and I think i just bought into the idea that there was only one way to live and so i strived for that.

    This whole lifestyle design “WORD” is new to me and i don’t really like the word but it does make sense. People think “what the hell are you and your family doing in France” and it’s hard to say that i am building the life i want. They just think we are on vacation and don’t see all the hard work that goes into making sure we can sustain this lifestyle. Oh well, at least we get to spend time with our kids while we work right?

    • It’s clear you have an awesome relationship with your kids and (probably very similar to my thoughts on this and my situation) whatever happens this will likely be a time you will never regret for that time with them you will never get back and for that experience.

      I’ve always thought that spending time with your kids is important. When I worked an office job I’d have arguments with colleagues who would expect me to stay late in meetings rather than getting back to see my kids before bedtime when the truth of the matter was that the meetings were unfocused and just dragging on anyway.

      There’s a different between truly important work and working late for show or out of fear – that’s what I have an issue with (whatever the work environment).

      Lifestyle Design as a term I guess is kind of new to me too but what I realized recently is that what I’m more interested in is living life on your terms – and you don’t necessarily have to quit your job to do that (even though eventually I did – but there was a lot more thought and prep that went into it than it might appear on the face of it – plus an exit strategy) – i.e. I reckon I was ‘doing’ Lifestyle Design for a good few years before I quit my job (e.g. when I made sure I saw my kids every day despite colleagues comments, when I moved to a part time working arrangement or when I took a 2 month sabbatical one summer).

  4. I already quit my previous one as I didn’t feel there were any more opportunities in the business. I discussed it with the team and gave them more notice than required, so it was all very amicable.

    The job I am doing now came about because my new employer was a client of my previous business, found out I was leaving, and decided to interview me for a role they were recruiting for.

    I didn’t intend on working for a few months, but these things happen because they are meant to!

    • Ah OK (though you know my advice would be to try and avoid doing that before having something else in place first – in any case you have an amazing situation now so all’s well that ends well…)

      You make a good point too – if it does come to quitting then doing so in a very amicable way, with a good degree of networking and maintaining good relationships (I think I mention something along those lines in the article) is important, because, as you say, you never know what doors will open in the future and the more good relationships you keep, the more doors there are 😉

  5. Your post is refreshing to say the least.

    There is a lot of employee-bashing online, where ‘entrepreneurship’ is this romantic state of the perfect be-your-own-boss-follow-your-passion life. It’s not for everyone, however.

    It’s easier to blame the job than to look deeper and figure out what else is to be fixed. In your case, it was a different lifestyle that the job didn’t fit around, not the job itself?

    – Razwana

    • Thanks Razwana,

      I agree entirely – there is a lot of ‘romanticism’ around this subject and that coupled with the fact that we all view things differently and with incomplete information, it’s easy to put 2 & 2 together and make 5 – both in terms of understanding others stories and also in terms of making key decisions such as whether to quit your job.

      Didn’t you recently change jobs or had you already quit your previous one – how did that go for you?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

Content Protected Using Blog Protector By: PcDrome.