Hate your Job? Follow these steps to quit your Job

Feeling stuck in your job?

Feeling stuck in your job and career is one of the most common problems of people I talk to. It’s also a feeling that I know well.

Learning how to quit your job and find one that you love however is life changing.

When you feel like you have no other options and your job stops exciting you, the next 20 years can seem like an eternity and you feel like you’ve lived your whole life before you have.

How to know if it’s time to quit your job.

If you routinely think, “I’m going to spend the next 20 years of my life coming into this office every day, doing the exact same thing every day, and the best possible thing that could happen to me is that I get a 10% pay raise every few years. Then I’ll retire and then I’ll die. “

That’s a clear sign that it’s time to quit your job.

Reasons that people don’t quit their job.

Even when you know you don’t want to do this job anymore, you’re also realistic. You think, “It’s a steady paycheck, it’s recession-proof, it’s the mature thing to do to stay with a company.”

“Not every person gets to absolutely love their job. It’ll be the same thing anywhere else I go, It could be worse, I’m actually very lucky.”

Sounds familiar?

How to quit your job: the proven system

Know your personality

I mean, really know who you are. Your personality is a set of inherent traits that make you who you are, while we’re all pretty unique, there’s also a lot about us that can be predicted based on what our personality traits are.

The easiest way to get a comprehensive understanding of who you are and what situations you’ll thrive in is to take the a personality test. If you’re okay with less official results, than you can get this free Myers & Briggs personality test. This gives you a baseline to understand what environments you’ll thrive in and what you’ll feel overwhelmed in.

Reflect on your Previous Jobs

What did you like? What did you hate? Start listing those out and as opportunities come to you and as you seek opportunities out, compare those to what you have.

I hated the unpredictable schedule, long hours commuting to the office. Actually, I despised it. So, switching from that to another position in the city would have left me in another job I hated.

This is one of the key elements in people switching jobs and then hating the new place. It’s like breaking up with a cheating boyfriend and then dating another cheating boyfriend. You’re repeating the exact same cycle every time. You’re finding the same type of job and then get confused when you end up hating it.

Find your passion

When I felt stuck in a job that I hated, I absolutely hated anyone talking about finding your calling or passion. I just wanted to get out! I didn’t care where! But the key here is to slow down and to make the right move.

Spending just a small amount of time figuring out what you’re passionate about will make you LOVE your work.

In a way that you can’t even understand right now (I certainly couldn’t!), we all have things that light a fire in us.

• Our kids

• Helping people

• Making a difference

• Painting

• Writing

• Golf

• Swimming

• Reading

• Creating new ideas.

These passions usually come out in our free time. What do you love doing and why do you love doing it?

Make a list of everything that makes you excited and that doesn’t feel like work.

The key to leaving a job you hate is to find a job you love, otherwise, you’ll be back here in a few years trying to figure out how to leave the new job that you also now hate.

The best way to find a job that you love is to spend time brainstorming about what you love, and why you love it.

Find your perfect job, not an opportunity

Ignore what’s available right now and make a list of jobs that you think would be perfect for you using all of the information you’ve already gathered.

Things you’re passionate about, what kind of work environment you enjoy and what kind of hours you’d like to work.

Really think about these jobs. And don’t count out a job because it seems far out of your reach or requires formal education (regardless of your age). If you think you would thrive as an author or actress, it goes on the list.

Choose jobs based on who you are, and where you would thrive, seriously thinking and researching about each job. Only cross out the jobs that wouldn’t be the perfect fit for you.

In some cases, you’ll need to narrow down the jobs.

Let’s say I love order, attention to detail and organizing. I love being helpful and routines make me feel comfortable. I’m strong at building relationships and I’m loyal.

I’d be a great fit for a secretary. That’s work that I would really enjoy and I’d find fulfillment in building a relationship with my boss and having him know that I’m reliable and he can count on me for anything.

That being said I’d be horrible as 1 of 100 secretaries in a large firm that treats staff impersonally. I’d thrive working with one person as his or her personal secretary. Preferably someone with a complimenting personality to me.

So on that list, instead of writing secretary, I’d write personal secretary who reports to a strong leader. There can be caveats to your job. Lots of them. This list is created for you.

Prioritize your list

You’re assigning priorities as to what you feel the most strongly about. #1 being your favorite and the highest number being your least favorite (but still something well suited to your personality that you would thrive in). There can be no ties.

• Go through your list and weigh the factors of each job (don’t take into account how hard the job is to get or formal education required).

• Assign a number to each job, number 1 is your ultimate dream job and then work down.

• Everything on this list should be a position that you feel you would thrive in.

• Now I want you to look at the list again, ignoring the numbers you assigned and assign each job a letter based on how easy the path is to get that job.

• Starting with A for the easiest. Something that you know if you apply yourself to, you can probably get a position there quickly.

• The last letter on your list will likely be something really hard to achieve like author or actress.

• Taking the list you have, I want you to choose your top 8 jobs (just in numbers) and then arrange them based on letters starting with the letter closest to A.

Now we have a list of your dream jobs starting with the ones that are easiest to achieve (which may still be pretty tough to achieve).

Map out a path

Take each of those 8 jobs and map out a path backward to actually get hired for a position.

• Are there requirements needed for the job?

• Networking?

• Do you need to start your own business?

• Do you need an education?

• Prior experience?

• A free internship?

Map out all of the (probable) steps you would need to take in order to land the job. A good resource is to ask on LinkedIn if your friends know anyone in these jobs that you can do a 10-minute interview with.

Likely you have a few hundred friends on LinkedIn. And those few hundred friends each have a few hundred friends and you have a huge network of people that know someone. And all you have to do is ask. They can give you inside info on how they got into the job and give you insight on how they would go about landing that job.

For each of those top 8 jobs, I want all of the steps from start to finish laid out that you would need to take to land that job.

Choose a job that excites you, gives you a fairly easy (comparatively) entry and that you know you can rock.

Now, technically, if you have a rocking savings account, and your budget skills are awesome, you could in theory just quit your job and go nuts.

Most of us can’t do that, though. We have to be a little more strategic.

Set an end date

Choose a date that you will quit your job, no matter what. It’s not a maybe date, it’s a “this is happening no matter what” date.

I usually set it one year out, which gives you plenty of time to put this into effect.

Write that date everywhere you can think of. Make it the screen saver on your phone, stick it on your office wall. When your job gets tough, know that you’re only there for another year.

You WILL NOT be someone who lives the rest of their life hating their situation but paralyzed to change it.

Commit to a side hustle.

You’re going to choose a number of hours between 10-20 hours a week to work your side hustle. I always start at 10 and ramp it up to 20 hours as your goal gets within reach. Treat those 10 hours just as seriously as if you were clocking into a boss.

You’re going to spend your 10 hours a week working through the steps you identified as needed to switch your job.

Here’s a few examples:

If your dream job requires a switch of companies (not a switch of skills), then your time will likely be spent researching the corporate culture of the competing companies. You’ll want to find one that you’d fit in, network with people that work there and create relationships to help you find the best fit. Learning advanced skills will help you secure the job over your competition.

If your dream job requires you to open your own business then your time will likely be spent researching the best path to market and monetize it, training to develop needed skills, raising capital (money) to purchase equipment or products.

You’ll need to research agencies to apply for while making a short list of the agencies that you really want to work with. Keep in mind career progression.

If you want to be a blogger, you’re going to spend those 10 hours a week creating a website (it’s easier than you think), writing posts, building up your platform (followers and email subscribers and monetizing the site.

Conclusion

It is not a quick fix, you need to spend time knowing yourself, understanding your situation and fulfilling your passion. It is a good sign that you have reach the end of this blog though. I recommend you take baby steps, starting from step 1 and the rest will follow. I promise.

Using this system a few years ago, I was able to not only change jobs but move to another country. I spent countless hours networking and improving my English (my native language is Spanish) and I saw the results. My new salary allowed me to pay off the mortgage of my house in my home country and I have been getting an nice steady income from rental. 

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