How To Know It’s Time To Leave Your Job

We all have bad days at work. But sometimes that bad day turns into a bad week, which turns in to a bad month, which can turn in to a bad year.

We may try and make excuses and chalk it up to something else. Or we may tell ourselves that things will get better after this stretch. But if that doesn’t happen, and especially if you remain more unhappy than happy, it may be time to leave your job and find a new one (or take that side hustle you’ve been working on to the next level).

There are some signs that can show you that it’s time to leave your job. You may shrug off one or two of these signs, but if multiple ones apply to, and continue to apply to you for long stretches’ of time, you may seriously need to consider leaving your job. Here are some of the signs you should pay attention to and stop brushing off.

How To Know It’s Time To Leave Your Job

You have more bad days than good.

Again, everyone has bad days at work. Everyone has those days where they’re super stressed, need to work late, or are on back to back calls without having a chance to take lunch. It happens. B

ut if you are having more of those days than normal work days, or if you are finding yourself dreading work every single morning, that’s a sign. Your good days should outweigh the bad ones, or at the very least they should be closely aligned.

You wake up in the middle of the night stressing about work.

We’re not talking walking up just once because there’s a big project looming. But if you are consistently waking up at 2 or 3 or 4 AM stressed about work, and tossing and turning because you can’t think of anything but work and all the things you need to get done, that’s not healthy.

This means that work is now affecting your physical, mental (and even emotional!) health… which it shouldn’t.

You’ve reached the ceiling.

You are young! You are still growing in your career! There is no reason that you should have already hit the ceiling and have nowhere else to grow to (unless you are working for a small business like a family one, of course).

Your 20s and 30s are those decades where you should be getting promotions and progressing in your career levels and in your pay. If you’ve already hit the limit at your company, you may want to re-think things.

If you are happy, that’s great and of course the most important thing. But if you want to continue to grow you shouldn’t be forced to stop.

You’ve stopped learning.

Not only are your 20s and 30s a time for growing in your position, they’re some of the biggest times for you to learn throughout your career, too. Heck, you should always be learning in your job!

No one is perfect and no one knows everything. Work should teach you things, whether it’s a new skillset for your current role or it’s another aspect of the professional world.

No matter what age you are, there are always things to be learned, and if that learning has stopped for you — or if you need to constantly seek the opportunities out for yourself – it may be time to explore new options.

You need a better work-life balance.

If there was any good that came out of the pandemic and quarantine, it was that employees are advocating for more flexible working options and prioritizing a healthy work-life balance.

Millennials and Gen-Z do not want to work outside of their allotted hour, they want to enjoy their life, their families, their friends, and so on. There are so many companies now that offer more flexible options such as work from home or hybrid options, summer Fridays, and so on.

If your company isn’t letting you have a healthy work-life balance, you may want to look into a company that does.

You know you are under-compensated.

Money isn’t everything, we know this. But if you know you are under-compensated not only is that just straight up not fair, it will eat at you and really taint your work and experience at the job.

Do you know what your colleagues on your level and on your team are making? If not, search on Glassdoor or other websites to see what the current average is for your job in your city.

Most times, the way to get that salary bump is unfortunately by changing companies all together, not through your current employer. If you are happy with your job but know you’re not being compensated fairly, have a talk with your manager advocating for yourself. If that gets you nowhere, find a job that will pay you what you’re worth.

You can’t enjoy your weekends because you’re thinking about work.

Sunday scaries are real. But it’s one thing to have Sunday scaries for a little and then go on and enjoy your day, and another thing to be so worried about work the next day that you can’t enjoy anything else.

If you are constantly thinking about work on the weekends, to the point where it takes over your thoughts, that’s a red flag. Your weekends are for you to enjoy! This totally goes back to the importance of work-life balance.

Your vales don’t align with that of the organization.

Millennials and Gen Z more than ever want to work for an organization that has similar values that they do. You never, ever want to compromise your morals or ethics. If you are misaligned to your job, it can cause big conflict (both internally with yourself and externally with your boss) as well as massive unhappiness.

Bluntly, it can be almost impossible to work for a company whose mission you don’t believe in. Your heart won’t be in it and you may even feel combative.

Have you experienced any of the above? How did you know it was time to leave your job for a new one? Share with us in the comments!