How to know when it’s time to leave (your job)

Whether you are stuck in an outdated job, a dissatisfying relationship, or an unsuitable living environment, sometimes all the justifiable reasons in the world don’t alleviate the feeling of being trapped. To prevent yourself from sliding into a depression, you keep withdrawing your presence from your current reality and projecting yourself into some idealistic future, pinning all your hopes on the fantasy that one day it will magically come true. Meanwhile, as each day passes and nothing changes in your current situation, your resentment festers and you mourn for the life you feel is slowly ebbing away.

It’s not wrong to have those dreams. In fact, they are the juice of all creation. You are an evolutionary being whose experiences have caused you to birth new desires that lead you on the ever-unfolding journey of your extraordinary life. However, if the external circumstances that inspired your expansion (e.g. your boring job) do not grow with you, eventually their constraint will become suffocating. Even though the unknown is scary, some part of you knows that to live in alignment with the expanded being you have become, you must make the decision to leave.

The ways we bargain with ourselves

Before you jump the gun and make an irreversible life-altering decision, you might be debating if it’s the right time. If you are hesitating, you are wise. Because when you do finally leave, you want to be able to stand behind your decision one-hundred percent. But when is the right time? When you have all your ducks in a row? When you have a solid plan? When you know everything is going to work out for you? (If you have a crystal ball that predicts the future, I’d love to talk.) The paradox is that it’s never the right time and it’s always the right time.

Without clarity, we can become paralyzed by indecision. We waffle back and forth between staying and going. Instead of reconciling our loss of faith in our ability to move forward and trust in the unknown to support us, we try to convince ourselves that there are valid reasons to stay:

• “When my boss/colleague/client recognizes their flaws and alters their behaviour, it will make my life so much easier.”
• “Others seem satisfied here. I just need to lower my expectations.”
• “In today’s economy, I should consider myself lucky that I have a job, at all.”
• “When I save up enough money, then I will go.”
• “I’m too old to start over.”
• “I’m too young to end something I’ve just begun.”
• “X/Y/Z person in my life depends on me. I can’t take the risk.”
• “I don’t know what else I want to do or where to go, so I best stay put.”

Of course, when it comes to making decisions about work in particular, the complicating factor is often money. It’s true, we all need money for our basic survival. This singular detail keeps so many people trapped in jobs they’re dying to leave. However, our focus on limitations around money is usually disguising the fact that there is some deeper fear we have not yet had the courage to confront.

What you need to confront will set you free

When we are immersed in the same environment with the same people and the same stories day after day, we can become so entangled in the web that has been woven that we can lose sight of what actually needs to be confronted. You may or may not already be consciously aware of what it is that needs to be addressed in your situation. Either way, you probably worry that if you do muster the courage to face it, your entire life might unravel – you might lose your job, your relationship, or your house – leaving you stranded, alone, and vulnerable. And that is scary. But what if instead of it being a limitation, the act of confronting your fear actually freed you?

The situation you are in, however painful, can be reframed into an opportunity to reclaim your real abilities, your true capacities, and your inherent power – in other words, to reclaim yourself. Fear is an indicator that we have given away our power to someone or something outside of ourselves. In this case, instead of looking within, we become obsessed with the “other” and consumed by the dynamic that is being played out.

For example, some of the patterns we get stuck in:

• Operating from a state of indebtedness (even when there is no actual debt)
• Saying “okay” when something is not okay
• Minimizing our own needs
• Accepting less than we deserve
• Diminishing our voice
• Letting others dictate the rules without our input
• Allowing ourselves to be dismissed
• Not standing up for ourselves in situations that warrant self-protection
• Not establishing appropriate boundaries
• Playing small to avoid risk

I mention these not from a distant place of judgement, but from the knowingness of one who has lived them myself. I have acted out each of these stories at different times in my jobs, my relationships, and my home environments. When things turned sour, I could have just left, however, I knew from past experience that even if I did, until I confronted the core wound that was driving my behaviour, I would just enter into similar situations and enmesh myself in the same old patterns. For me personally, I finally had to confront that my choice to engage in the above behaviours had been rooted in a lack of self-respect. With hindsight, I can say that I am grateful for those difficult situations because they lead me to reclaiming my dignity. Then standing in my sovereignty, my decision as to when to leave became clear.

Make the decision from your sovereignty

You are not the person you were when you started that job, entered that relationship, or moved into that house. Your current situation is a reflection of who you were then, not who you are now. Whether you stay or go depends on whether the situation is keeping you trapped in the version of yourself you once were or if it has also evolved and is capable of supporting who you have since become.

If you are reading this, it’s likely are yearning to leave your situation. It’s important to make that decision from a state of sovereignty otherwise you will end up repeating the same old patterns, playing out the same old wounded stories. To be sovereign is to be in a state of autonomy, beholden to no other or no thing. You act with the awareness that you can trust yourself and you can trust life. You know that your energy will continue to serve you in realizing the fulfillment of your heart’s desires.

When it’s time to go, you will know. Nothing or no one will be able to stop you. And when you do, you will celebrate the exciting, new chapter of life your decision has inspired.