Five Signs that it's time to change your job

Let's be honest, not many people wake up in the morning longing to get to work. Most lottery winners quit their jobs pretty quickly after all. Then again aren't most lottery winners supposed to be miserable, or broke? Or is that just us non-winners projecting? Anyway, I digress.

We spend a large proportion of our lives at work. More than that, we spend an even larger proportion of our most productive years, our child-raising years, our 'prime' years at work. If work sucks then it's hard for life to be great. However it can be easy to slide slowly, inexorably into a cynical distain for your work and, like that gently boiling frog, we don't notice it happening.

So here are five signs that might give you the heads-up that it is time to be moving on.

Hoping for Traffic
Commutes are rarely the highlight of somebody's day so when you start to find yourself gently pleased to be caught in traffic and delays, it's not a good sign. Although getting in to the workplace late is never good, traffic gives you a guilt-free opt-out for just a small sliver of the day. Of course you really ought to make up the time at the end of the day but something's telling me that probably isn't going to happen. So if you find yourself happy to hit that traffic, maybe things are not so good.

Count Your Snoozes
Is there any worse sound than that of your morning alarm? That is why you should never set one of your favourite songs to be your alarm call as you will quickly grow to resent it. We all know that we're supposed to get lots of quality sleep and yet we don't. So every morning the alarm goes off and we have to drag our carcasses out of bed and off to work. That snooze button looks awfully tempting doesn't it? Just another 10 minutes can't hurt. It can and it does because before you know it that alarm is going off again, just as you've got back to sleep. Can you fit in another snooze? Probably not but what the hell! Is this you? How many time are you hitting that button? If you're hitting that button it's another sign that you don't want to be heading off to work. Another sign that you might be due a change.

The Spectre of Unfinished Business
Now we all know that there is always more work to do than can physically be accomplished in the working week. If you doubled the hours that you worked, there would still be more work to be done. How do those unfinished tasks affect you? Do you spend your weekend ostensibly doing regular activities (walking the dog, doing the shopping, visiting family etc) but all the time in the back of your mind is that report you haven't written or the unread 100+ emails? People who are passionate about their work, who love what they do, are thinking about the things they need to do too. The difference is they actually then do them. If you let this unfinished business haunt your 'free' time and still don't tackle it, that's worse than not caring at all and could be an indication that things are not heading in the right direction on the work front.

Envying Old People
Now we're starting to get pretty serious. When that guy in the office has his retirement do it's okay to joke about how lucky he is. When you're in work the idea of retirement seems like one permanent holiday though I suspect that the reality is somewhat different. However if you really find yourself envying old people just because they don't have to work any more that is a red flashing light that your work situation is approaching critical.

I vividly recall a conversation, at a retirement presentation, with a colleague, Peter, in his 40s who said that if he could just hit a button and fast forward 20 years to his own retirement he would do it in a heartbeat. He was serious too. He would give away 20 years of life, a huge proportion of our brief time on this planet, just to avoid work. I remember asking him why he didn't just leave and he said that he needed to stay for the pension. That was the most depressing part of it, that he felt trapped, compelled to orbit this particular star until it's gravitational pull finally granted him oblivion.

Don't wish your life away. Change is hard but if the idea of being old appeals to you just so that you don't have to work, you need to get yourself an exit strategy. There's another reason too. You might finally get to that age and then find that you can't retire after all. Retirement ages around the world are rising and I hate to say it but your pension is probably not as great as you think. Get used to the idea of working into old age, so you better find something you like doing. It doesn't need to be a daily grind and in fact take inspiration from those older workers who tend to be happier than their younger colleagues.

The Fear of Falling Off Ladders
People talk about 'career ladders', of getting on the first rung, or of reaching the top. The analogy is quite apt when you come to realise that you are on the wrong ladder. It might have been your chosen career once but now it's not a choice. You've come this far already. It will take time to climb down this ladder and then years to climb up another one. It's not worth it, it's not practical. Better to keep climbing up, or at least just cling on for dear life.

“Failure’s hard, but success at the wrong thing can lock you in forever”, Po Bronson.

If you find yourself in this particular trap, and I'm guessing it is one that affects people more the further they are into their careers, then you already know the answer. You know that you need to change your job. The question is, do you have the courage to? It's not easy. In fact it might be downright terrifying. You have commitments, both financial and familial. People depend on you dammit! What if you make the switch and then realise you've made a terrible mistake? Will you be allowed back on the ladder at your old rung? What will people say?

But what if you do nothing? Will you be like Peter, waiting for years (decades?), just marking time whilst you cling on to the ladder? A lot of questions and not a lot of answers, but your answers are yours alone and some anonymous blog on the Internet isn't going to provide them. I'm busy looking for my own answers, reading widely, asking questions and working it through.

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This post was in part inspired by the excellent Career Relaunch podcast from Joseph Liu. The 'snooze' example is taken from one of those episodes and if I could remember which one I would give it due credit. Check out Joseph, he has some great resources.