Before you answer this question, just ask yourself –
- Do you have a job in hand ?
Well if your answer to the above is – yes, and you do have some thing definite planned for yourself, you can answer the above in affirmative.
If the answer to the above is – No, please ensure that your answer to – “Are you ready to quit your job ?” also stays “No” – till the time you are sure of what you would want to do once you quit.
At times, pressure and frustration at work goes to the extent that it blocks our thought process and forces us into taking a drastic step of planning to quit and finally making us quit our job.
It’s not that we don’t look for alternate opportunities – the case may be that we are unable to find suitable opportunities within the time frame allowed to ourselves and end up getting frustrated to extremes and one fine day we put in our papers even before we are sure of our next assignment or our plans without a job.
Unless and until you want to start on your own, or you are sure because of any specific reason of your security, financial stability – try not to take the extreme step if you don’t have your plans worked out.
Quitting, is not just about leaving a job, or financial security. Quitting, in an unplanned or poorly planned manner with no where to go – can also have a serious emotional impact in form of – low self confidence, feeling negative about oneself, low self esteem etc. In our conditions, a job is not just about a daily engagement and money, it also ends up becoming an identity in front of friends and family members. Normally its difficult for people – specially family members to understand the need for some one to take a break from a busy life and relax for some time.
Another issue with quitting, with nothing in hand is – when you finally start looking for a job without any existing engagement, prospective employers, hiring managers look at you with suspicion and start doubting your caliber. Even if some one decides to make an offer to you, it ends up being at a compromise for you, and honestly you don’t have any reasonable bargaining power to be able to negotiate a better deal.
There is normally nothing to fall back on. Well if your skill sets are a prized commodity, you may be able to land up a job and assignment as per your will, but that may not be applicable to most of us.
One simple advise may help if you keep on getting the quitting pangs – please do your best to land a new job, and if you just plan to take a sabbatical – make yourself emotionally strong, plan for your sabbatical, plan for the time when you would want to resume your job search and create a meaningful reason to justify the job break to prospective employers when you resume your job search.
Praveen is the Founder & Principal Consultant of KHEdge, a boutique HR & Business Process Advisory firm. Over last 15 years he has advised & worked with promoters, founders, business leaders, HR leaders in areas of - Business Strategy, HR Strategy, Organisation Design etc.