Editor’s note: This is an adapted article in collaboration with Ro. Do check out Roberta’s blog of reflection and learnings.
TLDR: When is it time to quit the job? Ro shares a few ‘filters’ and prompts to ask yourself. This helps us to quit even the cushiest of jobs when we no longer feel that we can add value or be valued at where we are.
Decision-making can be hard at the best of times.
We’re making hundreds if not thousands of decisions on a daily basis, and we can get so consumed with making the right ones.
The number of variables and contingencies that inundate us even in ‘simple’ decision-making about what or where to eat, or where we should go for our next holiday can be confounding.
We aren’t even talking about the decisions that carry a heavier weight, such as do I look for a career change or do I quit my job?
How then, did I make that final decision to leave my Tech job and be okay with it?
After 4 months, I can say that I am still confident in my decision and the new path that I am on. These are the prompts, collated and picked up from many different books and sources that helped me overcome the ‘what if’s’ and fear of making a catastrophic mistake.
I believe it’s through this filter, that made sure I made the ‘right’ choice for me.
Align Work To Values
I consciously and very intentionally checked in and considered if I was living out my core values. A few of these are: family, respect, growth, creativity and community empowerment.
During the final few months of employment, I reflected regularly on how much I was hitting the cornerstones of my values, and how fulfilled I was by the work I completed. I considered whether I could mould my job to align better with my desire to align my values and contribute to a greater cause.
Ultimately, I considered what I wanted my work and life to look like, and if it was supported by my current career track. The answer was no.
A valuable sutta resource is how Buddha talked about finding the right livelihood. If one finds themselves constantly in a job that weighs them down in mental states, it might be wise to reconsider the role.
Would I regret not making the decision sooner? What is the risk of doing nothing?
So many of us have that thing, that we teeter-totter on the edge of starting, then months pass and we still haven’t started.
The reality is, we could have been months into getting better at it already. I had already toyed with the idea of leaving my job for the past 3 months, and the idea wasn’t really leaving me, despite all the changes and motivation I was trying to muster.
I wasn’t growing the way I desired nor succeeding in making my work more meaningful and impactful. In short, in another 3 months, I would regret not making the decision sooner, and the risk of doing nothing was severe burnout and loss of personal willpower.
I made the decision to leave at an opportune time, when I was still excited about the unknown, and not yet fully burnt out to the point of dissociation or detachment.
What’s the T.E.A? Reflecting on what gives me energy and what drains me?
Thoughts. Energy. Attention. In my daily life, I was constantly thinking about different challenges and creative pursuits.
I found energy in doing my own writing projects and helping with internal and external copywriting. In my core role, I felt drained by the corporate structure and politics after each meeting, and I was quite frankly sick of the need to constantly expose myself for accolades.
My attention was often on events outside of my core role and in extracurricular company cultural activities.
All these signs led to the reality that the T.E.A was not continuing on in a multinational company in the current state of affairs.
Realising how I responded to my environment, and how it impacted not only my personal life but also my happiness was the final straw that helped me to pull the plug.
I hope this can highlight that decision-making requires intentional self-reflection and consideration. What is “better decision making”, except simply making conscious and intentional decisions that are right for your particular circumstance. Without reflection, we don’t have the opportunity to know what we can change to make our situation better.
Wholesome Wednesdays (WW): Bringing you curated positive content on Wednesdays to uplift your hump day.
Burnout can happen anytime and anywhere. When it happens, the whole world feels shakey and dark. How can we identify if we are falling into such states? Is leaving a career/ relationship that is causing us great stress a bad thing? Here are two resources that might benefit you.
1. There are different types of burnout, do you identify with any of these? 2. Maybe it is time to leave.
There are different types of burnout, do you identify with any of these?
Cr: Unsplash
What’s going on here & Why we like it
Havard Business Review, a business media platform, shares about the different types of burnout that one might be facing. We like it because it is widely encompassing and it also forces us to do a reality check on ourselves at work. When we are fully burnout, we aren’t in the mindstate to decide on what’s best and that might impact those who are closest to us. Using this resource enables us to catch burnout before it happens.
“While burnout is a common workplace affliction, it comes in different shapes and sizes”
Wise Steps
Identify if we are facing any of these archetypes and if we can take active steps to prevent them from accelerating
Talk to a mentor if you are feeling uncertain about your job or just not feeling it is the right fit. A listening ear might just help
The tiny wisdom, an awesome Instagram comics page, shares a comic about leaving. Knowing when it is time to leave and grow. Often, we think of leaving as a failure on our part. However, this comic shines a new light on leaving. It is painful but it enables us to see and go places we’ve never been or done. We like it because it reframes leaving from something generally negative to something positive. Maybe this is a time to leave a job or a working relationship behind to grow.
Her simple analogy of climbing a mountain that you no longer have joy in climbing hits home hard as young working adults. We may wish for a promotion/ dream job/ dream partner only to realise it is not what we wanted. It is okay to acknowledge that things change and give up.
“But at some point life goes on
And we need to go
To places we’ve never been
To do things we’ve never done
To experience life while we can”
Wise Steps
Search within: What bad qualities/ unskillful behaviour can we leave behind this month?
Contemplate: Are we holding on to an ideal career/life that everyone except yourself seems to envy?
Wholesome Wednesdays (WW): Bringing you curated positive content on Wednesdays to uplift your hump day.
We often prioritise winning especially in Singapore. How we know when to quit? What if we are not lazy but burnt out? These are great times to check in and answer ourselves honestly
1. How to figure out when to quit? This framework might just help you
2. You might be the 75% of adults who face some form of burn out. Here are 6 signs to check on
How to figure out when to quit? This framework might just help you
What’s going on here & why we like it
Ali Abdaal, a youtuber who focuses on self-growth and self-education shares about the value of quitting and why sometimes it is better to give up than to continue. He shares on Stephen’s quitting framework for us to get a grip on our lives and avoid the pitfalls of following a past commitment that is no longer relevant.
“The payoff (going to medical school) wasn’t worth it”
Wise Steps
Run through this framework on different aspects of your life to check in on whether you should quit on certain projects that you have dragged on…and have made you a grumpy person
Watch the tiktok below!
You might be the 75% of adults who face some form of burnout. Here are 6 signs to check on
Cr: Psych2go
What’s going on here & why we like it
Psych2go, a youtube channel focusing on mental health, shares 6 signs to check on to determine if you are lazy or plain burnout. Some of the signs are: depersonalisation (not feeling like yourself), demotivation (you used to be motivated), and you find difficulty finding passion. We like this video because it allows viewers to discern between lazy mind states and a clear need for intervention in mental well-being (burnout)
“Burnout develops in stages…it doesn’t happen overnight. There are 5 stages of burnout.”
Wise Steps
Do a check-in! See if you can spot any of the 6 signs of burnout and start taking active action by reaching out for professional help.
TLDR: Why quit your job during a pandemic? How do we help our friends who are thinking about quitting?
When the pandemic plunged the world into recession, university graduates felt nervous. The fear of not finding a job or having your job offer rescinded was real.
Hence, to land a job and then quit your stable, full-time job during a pandemic makes you pause and say “Huh, why?”. Yanda has a different take. He asks ‘Why not?’.
Sipping coffee as Yanda shares his story
The Job Hunt Hype
Yanda, a final year student in 2020, took his time to enjoy university while it lasted. He mentioned that “everyone was rushing to secure a job. There was great hype for job hunting.”
It was definitely not an easy climate to be in. Rather than worrying about uncertainty, Yanda volunteered for Buddhist Organisations such as NTU Buddhist Society/ BYN (Buddhist Youth Network). He then took on the job search in his own time.
(No. Yanda doesn’t come from an uber-rich family where a job falls on his lap. He didn’t see the need for an all-or-nothing chase.)
Eventually, Yanda obtained a few offers in the engineering space and took on a role he thought he might enjoy. That is where things changed.
Is This It?
Work soon became monotonous and a routine for him. He noticed a routine of “working, going out for lunch, sitting back down and going home.”
This made him wonder, “Is this it? Is this how I am going to spend my life? What do I want? If I lived to 60 years, will I be content with doing 40 years of the same thing?”
In response to his musing, I mumbled: “Definitely not me.”
His attempt at sharing work struggles with some friends did not yield something he could relate to. They alluded to “finding meaning in your job rather than have the meaning come to you.” It was cold comfort.
I could see his thought process unfold and why that advice didn’t sit well. Yes, there was this sense of job security during a pandemic but it brought little meaning to him. That meaning was nearly impossible to find.
The turning point came when this question popped to mind, “If tomorrow, I am going to die, I would only remember that I did paperwork here and there. That’s it”. That spurred him into action. He tendered his resignation and left the company to the shock of his peers. New hires are usually expected to stay in that job for at least 2 years, but he stayed in that role for less than 6 months.
The Pains Of Change
“I had fear and felt scared”, he gulped when recalling the moment he quit and had no job offer on the horizon.
“So what helped you through the uncertainty?” I quizzed.
The fellowship of his Buddhist circle who listened patiently was what brought him to a brighter state of mind. Friends that were slow to advise but quick to listen to his pain helped him greatly. “That is what matters…being there for me,” he concluded.
“Confidence in the Buddha’s teaching, knowing that all these negative emotions would fade,” he added, gave him strength when he was alone. He viewed the transition as “uncertainty at its very core.”
Over the years, having done mindfulness practice enabled him to watch his emotions and to make necessary changes without attachment. That gave him the conviction that it was not an impulsive move but an informed one.
Starting Again
Smiling as he recalled his Buddhist work, “I have done a lot of Buddhist work that brought joy to me. If this (engineering) job doesn’t fit me, what can I do?”
As causes and conditions came together, Yanda didn’t need to wait long for an answer.
“A friend told me that she had an opening at a preschool where they wanted a Dhamma friend to help build the school’s curriculum.” He recalled. He mulled on the idea of facing kids all day and decided to take the plunge.
Yanda is now studying for a Diploma in Early Childhood Education while working to help build the preschool’s curriculum.
“Uncertainty,” he answers immediately when asked what he loves about his job. “What the children can bring to you every day with every interaction presents uncertainty,” he added.
When he dived deeper, he felt lifted about being able to help kids appreciate this ‘thing’ called the mind. Letting them know that there are ways to develop their minds. Equipping them with Buddhist concepts, techniques and emotional awareness to thrive in a stressful world really motivated him.
“Kids are easy to teach, as they are free of concepts,” he quipped. At that moment, I recalled being an inquisitive child, something I felt I have lost along the way. It was interesting to see how uncertainty could bring us pain (job transition) and joy (teaching kids).
Helping Others Start Again
I was curious to hear Yanda’s take on how we can help our friends’ transition from one job to another.
“There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but what I can say is that this is something cliché,” Yanda shared.
“Listen to them and be genuinely happy for them. Recognise that they took a courageous decision to step out of something that did not fit them,” he added.
On a practical side, Yanda shared that we should remind our friends to also financially plan ahead if they choose to resign without a job offer. As a rule of thumb, one should have at least 3-6 months of expenses saved in cash to weather them through their job search.
His advice was grounded heavily on the Buddhist idea of appreciative joy which is a joy in the achievements/victories of others.
“How can I support you? Do you need resources/contacts?” has been one of the most helpful questions friends asked. I instantly agreed by nodding furiously as I felt that we often are quick to develop solutions without considering our friends’ needs.
Turning Back Time
“Your first job is super important” is one piece of advice that Yanda recommends ignoring for graduating students. It adds unnecessary stress to the individual. That person may then seek out the perfect job which may not exist.
Having wisdom is crucial in helping us see the world properly. If he could turn back time to advise his graduating self, he would say this: “Have an attitude in life that let the results take care of themselves once I try my best. If it doesn’t go my way, what can I do next?” and “We are our own boss, only we can understand our emotions and the true nature of our mind.”
Asking that question gives us the courage to be open to what life can bring. What we can do is to create conditions for success while developing a sense of non-attachment to the outcome.
“Understand we have a mind, and emotions are never truly ours. Just like a cup. The reason why we wash it is that we are confident that the dirt can be washed off. The dirt was never the cup.” he summarised.
It was a mind-blowing summary of expectations and emotions. Recognising emotions as transitory and being at ease with the unpleasant is a skill set we all need as we go through the different changing phases of life.
Yanda showed that Singapore youths are hungry for life and meaning. We need not stay in the same job just to clock a magical number of years before leaving. Asking ourselves “Is this it?” can spark conversations and paths we never dreamt of.
Yanda is currently working in Blue Lion Preschool as an early childhood educator trainee.
