A Guide to Quitting Your Miserable Job

Written by Editor in Chief, Pick The Brain - 15 Comments
Categories: money and finance, motivation

I quit

Some people are lucky enough to discover their ideal career at a very young age. For them, the path is clear: develop an interest, get a relevant degree, cultivate expertise, and climb to the top of the ladder.

These people are the vast minority. The rest of us reach adulthood without knowing what we really want to do for a living.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Maybe you have diverse interests. Maybe you never really thought about it. Or maybe (especially if you’re a web junkie like me) your ideal career didn’t exist 5 years ago.

Finding the ideal career is far from obvious but if you don’t actively look for it you can get sucked into a job that doesn’t make you happy.

Do You Have a Job or a Career?

This an important question to ask yourself because it there is a vast difference between the two.

A job is just work. You might like it, you might not, but you do it for the money and it has no connection to your personal identity. If you lost your job, you might be upset but you’d get over it when you found a replacement.

A career is inseparable from who you are and who you want to be. A person with a job is collecting a paycheck. A person with a career is working towards a dream.

When I graduated college I had no idea what career was right for me so I did what most people do — I took the path of least resistance. I interviewed with employers who recruited on campus and wanted someone with my degree. I didn’t care what type of job I got. My only priority was finding one before graduation.

I don’t consider this a mistake because I learned a lot and worked with great people. But I was miserable. My passions and talents just didn’t fit. It eventually comes to a question: Are you willing to settle for a life of discontent and mediocrity just because you’re afraid to make a change?

Step 1. Follow Passion

For someone in this situation it’s easy to feel powerless. We all have expenses and responsibilities. How do you quit your job and start your career if (a) you don’t know what it is, and (b) you probably aren’t qualified anyways?

The first step is answering question (a) by following your passion. Not to say that if you like to read fiction you should become a novelist, or a painter if you admire Van Gogh. It’s important to be practical and find a career that is both personally satisfying and valuable to others.

The key is finding the place where your passions and aptitudes intersect with valuable labor. For this I recommend reading (online, books, magazines, everything) and having conversations with people you admire. It takes time but it should be fascinating. If it’s not, you’re on the wrong track.

For every passion (art, science, sports, nature, etc.) there are thousands of careers in close proximity. The point most people miss is that career opportunities lie, not in indulging the passion itself, but in bringing it to others.

Do you love art? Maybe a career in design is right for you. Love talking to new people? Maybe you’d be great in sales. There’s a place where what you love to do intersects what you’re great at — that’s your ideal career.

Step 2. Building a Resume and a Network

The next step is building a body of work and connecting with people in your industry. You need a body of work because you have to prove your ability and commitment before anyone will hire you. A network will help you find that first opportunity.

The only way to build a body of work is to get out there and start doing. Don’t let inexperience or shyness hold you back. What you need to build depends on the career you want, but generally some good ideas are:

  • Writing – Any time you can share thoughts and ideas clearly you prove your understanding of a topic.
  • Organizing - Arranging a list of resources and commenting on the work of others is another good way to build understanding.
  • Creating – The actual creation of something that’s valuable to others is the most impressive (and difficult) way to create a body of work.

Creating a body of work goes hand in hand with building a network. Your hard work isn’t much good when it’s sitting in a closet. You have to actively share it, and in the process you’ll develop valuable relationships.

The web is an amazing place to find and be found by potential colleagues and employers. No matter what industry you want to break into there are people on the web looking to connect. There might even be a social network specifically for that profession.

You should also seek out offline networking opportunities. Go to public events that people who share your passion might attend. Join local organizations. Bring up your aspirations in conversation. This isn’t particularly hard to do, but it takes initiative and motivation.

Step 3. Make the Leap

Strangely, quitting a job you hate may be a difficult decision. Even when we aren’t happy, we get comfortable and resistant to change. Don’t let fear keep you in a job that’s just OK because the stability is nice and it pays pretty good. Test the market, look for opportunities, revamp your resume, peruse job boards. Just get out there and search.

Maybe you’ll get lucky and an opportunity will fall into your lap. That’s what happens to people who work towards a dream with passion and conviction. Don’t be afraid to take that opportunity. Even if it means less money and more risk and your friends think you’re crazy.

Take your career into your own hands. Your work shouldn’t be something you tolerate. It should be something that drives you — to become the person you should be, to give everything you can.

Image by Jessica DeWinter

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  • http://www.the-happy-manager.com/index.html Phil

    A good article John, especially the section on working on a passion. There is an argument that working at something one loves is not the ideal, as work in itself will detract from the enjoyment we get from the activity. I don’t subscribe to that, preferring to side with positive psychologists like Mihalyi Csíkszentmihályi. His work on “flow” clearly illustrates the benefits of working on things we love.

    We’ve got a couple of articles which might be worth looking at on these topics.

    http://www.the-happy-manager.com/career-goal-setting.html (don’t miss the Tom Peters video clip on passion. Plus http://www.the-happy-manager.com/goal-setting-tip.html , for some ways to make the most of the job you’ve got, whilst looking for the job you’d love!

  • http://www.pickthebrain.com Peter

    John,

    I like the way you described the difference between having a “job” and having a “career”. I have a job at the moment that is “good” in many ways (good money, good manager, etc). Unfortunately, it is not my calling.

    I would love to quit my job, but I am careful not to do anything rash. I’m taking small steps, and gradually things are becoming clearer and clearer as to what I want to do with the rest of my life. Like you, I am excited by the web and I have a feeling my ideal career will involve this in some way.

    Lastly, well done for finding a career you are passionate about!

  • http://financialphilosopher.typepad.com/thefinancialphilosopher/ The Financial Philosopher

    Many struggle with the path of combining “what we do” and “who we are” into one entity. These thoughts resonate nearly two years after I made that step into the world of “self-employed…”

    1. There is more “risk” in sharing the control over your destiny with someone else (your employer) than taking complete control of it yourself.

    2. It is true that “closing one door opens another.”

    3. Making a transition for the right reasons, such as priorities above money, is more likely to lead you down the right path than the pursuit of monetary wealth…

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  • http://www.varsityblah.com/about Eugene (Editor, Varsity Blah)

    It’s amazing how often we’re told to follow our passions and yet most of us prefer the safety of a steady job. I’d much rather risk failing in something I love than guarantee regret doing something I don’t.

    Success Built to Last says it best: “All you have is your personal capital; your talents, skills, relationships, and enthusiasm. Cultivate your capacity to be fully alive in your work because doing something that matters is a dream worth your life.”

  • http://www.adversityuniversityblog.com Stephen Hopson/Adversity University

    John:

    You described my experiences to a “T”! I gave up a six-figure Wall Street career (was a stockbroker) to follow my dreams of becoming a motivational speaker, author and pilot. It was scary as hell to walk away but looking back, I have to knock on wood and say that the universe continues to provide for me, even during lean times. Money and opportunities always seemed to come to me at just the right time.

    In my presentations, I use passion as part of my talk to emphasize the power of following what you truly want to do. I developed the HEAR Principle where H means HAVE A PASSION, E means ENTERTAIN THE POSSIBILITIES, A means either take ACTION or be AUTHENTIC and finally R means REMEMBERING WHO HELPED YOU.

    Having a strong passion will get you through some of the obstacles on the way becuase otherwise what will you do the moment you hit the first obstacle? If you don’t have a passion to fuel you through tough times, how will you survive?

    Thanks for sharing this story – it was GREAT. I look forward to the second part of our interview next week at Adversity University. It’s a great opportunity for people to really get to know you and put a personal face to this blog. :)

  • http://www.passionbasedlearning.com PassionBasedLearning

    I absolutely LOVE that the first step deals with passion. Any ambitious endeavor pursued without being based on passion is highly likely to fail or be extremely difficult.

    My blog discusses topics related to the above and is focused on the philosophy of “passion-based learning”. I can certainly relate to the author of the above post and I’m glad we share similar perspectives.

    Wonderful stuff! :)

    Regards,
    Amir Ahmad

  • http://www.lifeisunlimited.com Lori

    I hear you on this topic!

    Thank you for the advice!

    Although everyone is skeptical, I also started a “similar” company to help everyone Live Their Best Life…in the process of quitting my miserable job!

    Life Unlimited can help you along your path to motivation, see: http://www.lifeisunlimited.com

    thank you for the info!

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  • guest

    so- youre unemployed and middle aged and broke and uyou follow your passion. Right

  • http://www.2knowmyself.com farouk

    i had a miserable job earlier and i think if i have read this article at that time i might have left my job :)

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  • NverDoo

    Cool… I also found some other great pointers on how to quit http://howtohacklife101.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-quit-your-job.html