How I knew it was time to quit my stable 9-5 job

today's the day one eternity later huh I did it I quit my job as a hospital social worker no I promise you this is not gonna be one of those videos where I tell you that if you don't like your stabilize my job and it's taking away from your life then you should just quit and finally live the life of your dreams we're actually trying to be useful with this video and for most people quitting your job is not that easy it's a huge financial and emotional decision and there are a lot of things to think about before making that leap quitting my job was not a decision that I came to overnight there were a lot of reasons for me to stay but there were also a lot of reasons for me to quit and for months I was going back and forth on should I quit should I not quit I don't want to be here but I like the stable income this job feels meaningless but I like the prestige personally the thing that was making it hard is for me to quit other than losing the job security the stable income and the prestigious job title was the fact that I had been working my ass off for the past four years to get to where I was and it felt like if I were to just throw that all away by quitting that all of my hard work would have just gone to waste also I feel like when you tell people that you're a healthcare worker you're like automatically respected and people's reactions are usually something along the lines of wow that is such a tough job I could never do what you do we need people like you and to be honest I kind of got off on that like I I liked the validation that I got from people when I told them what I did for work it was totally an ego thing okay I I admit it despite all that though my final decision was still to quit and looking back on those few months leading up to me quitting I can see that there were four questions that I was pondering that made it very clear that quitting my job was the best decision and I'm gonna share those four questions with you in this video so that you can ask them to yourself because if you clicked on this video you're probably also thinking about quitting your job so hopefully by asking yourself these questions that'll also help help you to make your final decision and make sure you stick around until the final question because it's actually a question that my therapist asked me and as soon as she asked me it I immediately made up my mind about quitting my job once and for all the first question to ask yourself is what does the long game look like if I stay in this job no I think there are two things that are really important to look at when considering the long game the first being career advancement typically all jobs are associated with some sort of career ladder where the higher up the latter you go the more of a leadership role you take on and the more money you make personally if I continue to climb the ladder that I was on as a hospital social worker that would have meant that I would have taken on a management role where I would be managing employees looking at data and essentially sitting behind a desk answering emails all day and that did not interest me in the slightest I would have rather run a double Marathon but because I had no interest in any of the roles above me in the ladder that I was on that essentially meant that I had hit a dead end with that role and I really did not like the idea of that I'm not someone that can stay stagnant I have to be growing and learning and progressing at all times but I want to be learning and growing in ways that are worthwhile and meaningful to me and with the role that I was in that was just not it so before you start climbing the career ladder that you're currently on just because you're currently on it I really invite you to think about what would your day-to-day tasks look like as you move up that ladder and is that something that you even want is that something that even interests you and if it's not and you also don't like the idea of being in a dead-end job then it might also be time for you to move on and find something else that's a better fit for you the second thing to consider when looking at the long game is money let me tell you about a moment where I had a huge wake-up call so in Ontario Canada where I live there is something called the Sunshine List and the Sunshine List is a list that gets updated every year of all public workers that make over six figures annually and this list discloses all of these people's incomes and the entire public has access to this list and on this year's list I saw the name of one of my colleagues who's been working longer than I've been alive at the hospital and I have so much respect for her and when I saw her income on this list I realized that she was making only about 15K more than I was as a brand new grad and to me this made absolutely no sense like she should be compensated so much more so how race has worked with that job was after he'd been working for a certain number of years your income would be capped and the only increase in your income that you would get after that would be a one percent raise every year to account for inflation inflation was like nine percent this year so if you're only getting a one person raise to account for inflation like how does that the math is not mathing even in a normal year when the economy is not on fire inflation is still on average two to two point five percent every year so if I were only going to be getting a one percent raise every year to account for inflation that would essentially mean that I would be taking a pay cut every year and that pay cut would be getting bigger the longer and longer that I stay there now this financial trajectory while it did offer stability it did not align with my financial goals I really didn't like that there was a ceiling on my income and I definitely did not want to be making less money every year like I would rather deal with the instability no some people might be okay with having that ceiling on their income if that means that they're going to get a stable paycheck benefits and a pension and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that either and I'm sure that my colleague that's been working for like over three decades is gonna get a sick pension as she should and I get that a pension is supposed to be like delayed gratification and I'm not asking for instant gratification but I would also like some medium gratification either way if you're also considering quitting your job it's really important to look at the current Financial trajectory that you are on in your current job and if that's something that you're okay with and if it's something that aligns with your personal goals and values and maybe if you're not ready to quit your job entirely it might not be a bad idea to look into the possibility of negotiating a raise or a bonus if that's something that your workplace offers now personally I was at a point where even if I was offered a bit of a raise or a bonus it still would not have been worth it for me to stay in that job for what I was giving up and that brings us to the next question to ask yourself if you're also considering quitting your job which is how is this job affecting my mental health I don't think it's a surprise that I burned out hard working as a hospital social worker and I actually made a whole video on my whole burnout recovery process if you're interested in checking it out I'll link it somewhere here but now that I'm out of that situation I can look back on that time and see that my mental health was so bad like it's one of those situations that you don't realize how bad it is until you're out of it and something I'm aware of now is that burnout is really akin to depression in a lot of ways a lot of the time you're experiencing the same low mood low energy irritability difficulty sleeping difficulty thinking and concentrating and I do believe that our modern Workforce is designed in a way that makes people a lot more prone to burnout and I mean they don't call Millennials the burnout generation for no reason and if your job is causing you any level of burnout chances are your burnout is probably having spillover effects into other areas of your life personally I was dealing with the lowest energy that I have ever had in my entire life like I started napping and I don't nap like I think I've taken four naps in my entire adulthood and all of them were earlier this year when I was working this job and my low energy also took away from me wanting to do things that I would normally enjoy and find fun like going out and seeing my friends and I'm really sad to say that I was not able to show up as a friend as much as I would like to this past year something that I also learned is a symptom of burnout and depression through this whole experience is difficulty thinking and one of the ways that shows up is an inability to make decisions and my inability to make decisions got me stuck in unhealthy situations because I could not make the decision to get out of them and guess what one of those things was that I couldn't make a decision about you guessed it quitting this job and my physical health took a toll too because of my poor mental health at the time I ended up getting these incessant pains in my neck and my shoulders that just magically went away after I quit this job I also was not sleeping well at all and I don't think I was eating properly either because I couldn't feel my Hunger cues because of how stressed I was so overall my mental health was not doing well and this time ramifications in a lot of other areas of my life my health my relationships my enjoyment of life and the amount that I was being paid in return for all of this without question was not worth my quality of life and I think it's really important for any of us considering leaving our jobs to think about what impact is this job having on my mental health is that having any other impact in other areas of my life and is it worth it and if the answer is no my friend it is time for you to move on the next question to ask yourself is how much work life balance does this job allow me to have work is not just the eight hours a day five days a week that you spend at work it's also the time that you spend revolving your life around work getting ready for work traveling to work traveling back from work running any errands after work because you won't have time tomorrow because you'll be at work and it's also not just the time that you spend for your job it's also the energy that you send for your job which is even more important and valuable than your time the energy that you have left outside of work is going to play a much bigger role than the time that you have left outside of work and determining how much work-life balance you have let me explain so if you have a very draining energy demanding job such as working in healthcare Chances Are by the end of the day you are just spent and even if you had time to go out and see friends or do something that you would normally enjoy with the six seven hours that you have before you go to bed you might not have the energy to do that with those six seven hours and you might just want to go home and watch Netflix on your couch and sleep instead and chances are you probably should if you have to go back to the hospital the next day now there's absolutely nothing wrong with that lifestyle where your job takes up most of your life and for some people that works really well for them but personally for me I don't prefer to give as much of my energy as I was to my job my job was easily consuming 85 to 90 percent of all of my energy and that meant that I only had 10 15 left to give to things that I actually care more about things like taking care of my health spending time with the people that I care about doing things I enjoy like reading and writing and making these videos my energy is a very limited precious resource and I need to be very selective of how and where I'm spending my energy and how much of it I'm spending on any given thing and with this job because it was consuming the vast majority of my energy that meant that my work-life balance was terrible so if you're also thinking about quitting your job I would really invite you to think about how much work life balance does your job currently allow you to have in terms of your energy not your time and are you okay with that and are you okay with the energy that you have left to give to the other areas of your life and depending on your unique situation it might not be a bad idea to see before quitting your job can you negotiate any more flexibility in your current job so that it's not taking up as much of your energy like can you see if there's the option that you can work from home or have flexible work hours but if that's not possible for you and you are really looking to have some more work-life balance and then it might also be time for you to move on now this next question is actually a question that my therapist asked me and as soon as she asked me it I immediately made up my mind that I am going to quit and that question is does this job bring out your best self I did not realize how much of a raging I have inside me until I started this job and like I'm usually pretty decently warm and friendly person but at this job I became a complete monster I'm surrounded by idiot I have asked you thrice now get I was the most irritable annoyed frustrated version of myself and I really did not like her she was Snappy everything pissed her off and the thing that bothers me the most about this cage in my personality was that this work version of myself started showing up in other areas of my life and I could feel myself being objectively unpleasant and because of that I started thinking that I shouldn't hang out with anyone because I didn't want to subject them to my unpleasantness we spend so much of our day and most of the best years of our life working so might as well make it an experience that we're excited and enthusiastic about and that brings out the best in us so I really invite you to ask yourself this question and it might also be the last thing that you need to help you make your final decision also I'm realizing that this video was sounding really negative and I don't want this video to deter anyone from pursuing a career in social work or healthcare because a lot of positive came out of this experience for me too first of all healthcare workers are some of the most amazing people you will ever meet they are just some of the most kind compassionate most hard-working passionate people that you will ever meet and I met so many people that I respect so much and who inspired me with how much passion they have for the work that they do and I also did grow in a lot of ways that are really important to me and I can definitely say that I'm much more confident as a person now and a lot of that is because I was forced to be a leader in this role and I'm usually more of a follower and I'm usually a lot more shy but now I have no problems being more directive and assertive when I have to be overall I have no regrets at all about this job and I'm really happy that I was able to have this experience I was just at a point where I had gotten everything that I could out of this job and it was clear that it was not a good fit for me and that it was time to move on to something else now this is the part of the YouTube video where I'm supposed to tell you that I quit my job to be a full-time YouTuber or start my own business or something and this is not the case for me right now maybe one day it will be but for now I am still passionate about social work and I do want to keep practicing as a social worker and I have found a new opportunity and I gotta say I'm enjoying it a lot more I think it is a much better fit for me and my personality and strengths there is a lot more room for growth both financially and career-wise it's much more intellectually stimulating so I'm looking forward to having that healthy challenge and it does allow for a lot more flexibility so I'm looking forward to having more work life balance and having more of my energy back and I think that's gonna make the world of a difference for my mental health health and how I feel overall I'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic of quitting your job it's like one of my favorite conversation topics these days so let's continue this conversation in the comments and in the meantime I hope you're staying healthy and safe and I will see you next time bye

Channel: Audrey Kao

Views: 156,501

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Id: w0-B3JloSfE

Length: 18min 22sec (1102 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 05 2022