I recently spoke to a few clients who were struggling with unhappiness at work. Most of them felt frustrated and wanted to quit the job.
Changing jobs is not bad, but are you ready for your next career, and what is the cause of your unhappiness. Do you long for a lifestyle shift, or was it just the fatigue from your work, or could it be other variables besides the work itself like, you are not in the right cultural fit, having terrible colleagues, or a company that doesn’t allow you the autonomy that you desire?
Before you feed your temptation to switch roles, thinking that there is a greener pasture on the other end, my advice is to understand the key to your quitting and rationalized the reasons. Once you evaluate this, you can weigh if there is still an opportunity to fulfilled the challenges in the job or it’s time to ditch that job as there no way it can be resolved:
Some key reasons to consider:
Poor cultural fit: Culture is defined as “The way we do things around” – Marcella Bremmer and “How the way people treat each other at work“ – Chris Edmonds. Most experts agree that generally, it comprises a set of commonly shared values and group behaviors reflected in patterns over time. Company culture is the most challenging thing to change, especially by an employee, unless you are the senior leaders; yet you still need stakeholders’ buy-in. Considering that you prefer to keep your work and personal lives separated, your colleagues turn every meeting into a chatty catch-up session and always invited the office staff to their gatherings or drinking session. Maybe you are the person who loves to tidy up after yourself vs. leaving the break room sink full of dishes as you view it as a lack of respect. In this situation, considering asking yourself, “Is this an inconvenience, or is this a problem? Is what I am encountering affecting my ability to be successful in my role?”. The problem with company culture is that one employee’s ideal situation can be another’s personal hell. Maybe you thrive in, efficient, no-nonsense environments, but for others, it could mean differently.
Challenging manager/colleagues: The majority of us will agree that people we working with dictate the environment and if a majority of the people we are working with aren’t the people we enjoy or get along with; it makes our job difficult, and it’s probably the sign that we should move on. Though leaving the job may seem like the best solution to retiring from a bad boss or bid farewell to your colleagues, it is also essential to understand that it is not always the best plan for your career. In fact, if you are in this situation, it’s crucial for you to recognize any unconscious biases and opportunities to resolve the conflicts with others if they arise. Conflicts are often an opportunity to learn more about ourselves and someone different from us. However, if it was only you that making an effort to salvage the relationship and the rest refuse to be open-minded and work together to resolve the conflicts, you know it is the time to move on.
You don’t have Phycological safety: This is simply because you cannot be yourself without the fear of negative consequences. The phycological unsafe workplace is the type of workplace that many of us call toxic. It’s an environment in which ideas are mocked, ignored, used against us, stolen, or just shut down entirely. A workplace like this makes people too afraid to contribute their thoughts in meetings, participate in discussions, or take risks in their work because any misstep could harm their credibility and damage their standing in the organization. If you are in this situation, then it’s a no-brainer sign that you should leave.
Your company direction is the opposite of your career vision/personal values: A vision creates a road map to plan our route to where we want, to correct our course when we are off track. It Is essential to have a vision as it is part of the requirement for career success. Our personal values are the inner motivator that drives and inspired us to do our job and be happier. When we are steered away from these, it’s time for us to take action.
All of us are of no different. We understand that there is no job without challenges, and our frustration often bubbling up most of the time wasn’t due to the job itself but steers more towards the challenges in the working space.
Understanding that some challenges can be helpful, which stimulates us instead of threatening us, can help us understand why we are really frustrated or bother at work. Someday we may just pass through our hustle of day so quickly that we forget to slow down and take a moment to pay attention to the challenges we face and engage in more in-depth understanding. We fail to search the moments in our brain and consciously pay attention to our thinking and identify what makes us genuinely hate and turn away.
Dive into some of this this reason, will open up more clarity for yourself if you are ready to quit or just need to learn to create an opportunity within the current challenges.