Confucius once said, “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” Too often, we let isolated financial needs override and fully direct our career choices, resulting in lackluster daily experiences focused strictly on paying the bills, as opposed to achieving overall human wellness. A fulfilling job puts food on the table while positively impacting other aspects of our hierarchy of needs.
What’s the best way to evaluate whether or not your current career has the staying power you need to reach your goals? Start by exploring subtle, yet surefire signs it’s time to change jobs.
Time to Change Jobs: Organizational Signs
One of the most common questions to ask during an interview is whether or not your potential position offers growth potential. Most employees value the opportunity to rise through the ranks of their organization; professional growth potential increases productivity, boosts morale, and opens the door for exploration and continued education opportunities. Hitting the promotional ceiling in your organization is a good sign it’s time to change jobs and focus your attention on new opportunities that can further advance your career goals.
Time to Change Jobs: Mental Signs
Often overlooked as simply “part of life,” work-related fatigue and burnout are extremely common in today’s workplace and are strong indicators it’s time to change jobs. Workplace burnout leads to chronic anxiety and depression with long-lasting, whole-body consequences. Mental signs of fatigue and burnout include things like:
- Detachment from aspects of the job you initially enjoyed
- Persistent brain fog, difficulty concentrating, and lack of creativity
- Consistently negative or cynical reactions to work-related functions, tasks, and projects
- Loss of passion, purpose, and productivity
- Boredom with your day-to-day and no desire to proactively seek out new tasks
Time to Change Jobs: Physical Signs
Similar to mental burnout, physical workplace burnout often indicates a deep inner conflict with your responsibilities, role, or organizational culture. These conflicts take a heavy toll on your physical wellness by acting against the systems your body needs to combat stress and anxiety. Physical indicators that it’s time to change jobs include:
- More frequent headaches or migraines
- Loss of sleep or sleeping more than normal
- Deep physical exhaustion, muscle soreness, and nagging pain
- Digestive issues, including stomachaches, cramping, and nausea
- Getting sick more often due to depressed immune system functionality
Time to Change Jobs: Environmental Signs
Toxic work environments lead to both mental and physical burnout fairly quickly. Not only can a negative environment pose difficulties in getting work completed, but it can stall personal progress, promotions, and professionalism among peers. Workplace toxicity is a very clear, important sign it’s time to change jobs. Watch out for things like:
- Discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, age, or any other personal characteristics
- Poor or no communication, especially from leadership and positions of authority
- Poor collaboration, backstabbing, and unprofessional competition among peers, departments, and teams
- Pressure to skip breaks, work late, avoid taking vacation time, and disrupt a healthy work-life balance
- Harassment, bullying, no whistleblower protection, and lack of human resource resolution tools
Finding A Job While You Have A Job
When you find yourself needing to change jobs in order to grow, maintain mental or physical health, or remove yourself from a toxic situation, timing is key. Try not to jump ship during moments of duress or emotional escalation. Instead, proactively develop a plan that fully identifies your career priorities and helps you maintain financial and bodily wellness while searching for a new job.
For some, this means biding your time at your current role while gathering portfolio and resume material. For others, especially those in highly-toxic work environments, plans may include securing a temporary role in another organization to financially hold you over while you apply for more permanent positions. Whichever direction you take, ensure your wellness and overarching career goals remain at the forefront of your decisions and action steps.
Deciding to change jobs can be extremely challenging, but your job search doesn’t need to be. Zoetic Resume and Writing Services offers personalized, professional resume, cover letter, and LinkedIn profile services that earn interviews and land dream jobs. Together we’ll take a deep dive into your career goals, experience, education, and professional background to ensure your resume and cover letter capture the best, most marketable parts of your work history. Ready to advance your career and gain a professional partner on your job search journey? Connect with Zoetic Resume and Writing Services here to learn more.