My Thought Process
How many reasons can we come up with to look for a new job? Most of us have weighed the options before, for one reason or another. Most of the time, that reason is money. We want to make more money because we’re struggling and living paycheck to paycheck. In fact, CNBC found that at the end of 2022, 64% of Americans were living paycheck to paycheck.
Even if we’re “happy” at a job or not struggling financially, searching for a new job is still a sensible thing to do. It’s a great idea to see what’s out there, keep your resume updated with your new skills (hard or soft), and keep your options open.
But there are many other reasons people decide to leave a long-time employer. Just a few of these could be work/life balance, feeling under-appreciated, under-whelmed, or not challenged enough… the list goes on and on.
Recently, people have determined that you’re more likely to have a healthier outlook on work (and make more money) if you DON’T stay at a company for too long. Even if you have the opportunity to try something new within the same company, your mental well-being changes drastically. But, if the same corporate problems continue, you’re just going to fall back into the same mindset that led you to look elsewhere in the first place.
Even though it’s rough on the economy, millennials have a healthy insight into the work/growth balance. Gallup found that 60% of millennials say they are open to a different job opportunity. Other generations say it’s their lack of commitment. It’s those millennials that are more likely to pounce on an opportunity when it arises. Is my generation just scared of change?
My Reasons
Most of you have read our About Us page already, so I won’t need to go into much detail before delving into my reasons. The 3 most important reasons that I started looking elsewhere, found something, left my job of 15 years (essentially putting our goals on hold), and didn’t look back are…
Reason 1: Commute
Living in New Hampshire, people are expected to drive in any and all weather conditions. For the first ten years that I worked for this one company, I drove less than 10 miles on a rural, winding road at under 40 miles an hour without a care in the world.
Once I moved and suddenly drove 31 miles on a double-lane highway, doing 65 miles an hour, 5 days a week, my attitude about driving changed. The traffic was crazy and full of people with road rage. As the winters set in, each year got harder and harder to drive to work.
So, I decided to get a job closer to home. It wasn’t necessarily the traffic or the price of gas that swayed my decision. It was definitely the weather. But avoiding people with road rage and not caring about the price of gas were both tremendous perks.
I now travel 4.8 miles, 5 days a week through the city, and only have to get gas once every two weeks. Plus I’m anticipating less wear and tear on the car that I expect to own for many more years. This, of course, is only until I get one of those “remote” positions.
Reason 2: Growth
During the years that I worked for that long-time employer, I realized a few things about myself.
I didn’t go to college right after high school like a lot of my peers, and the restaurant business was not something that I could mentally handle for too long. Manufacturing was something that I could do, make more money than in a restaurant, and never work nights and weekends again (unless it was overtime and/or I wanted to), all without a college degree. I got pretty good at every position that I held while I was there, but I always ended up in a leadership role without the leadership pay or title.
I soon realized that I could get a leadership role if I had a college degree. So I enrolled in a business administration degree program and had it paid for by that employer. That was the icing on the cake… I could go to school part-time, keep a good grade point average, graduate debt free in a few years, then get a higher-paying job with the same company. At least, that was the overall goal.
While I was in school, I figured out that I was also pretty good at some aspects of the business world. Keeping my eyes on the prize, until graduation seemed to be a challenge, however. I was unhappy which lead to the next reason that I left….mental sanity.
Reason 3: Sanity (or mental well-being)
Toxic work environments are not fun and it’s really difficult to not allow the people around you to affect your attitude. So I let them chase me out. I chose to leave a job that I found intriguing, a future with a growing company, and a larger paycheck in order to maintain my mental health and happiness. I took a major pay cut and I finished earning my college degree without the help of that employer. I chose to accrue student loan debt with the goal of a better career and mental health.
I was very fortunate to find a position that required very little experience and allowed me to shift the environment that I had been stuck in for so many years. I went from manufacturing assembly work to office administrative assistant. QUITE THE SHIFT!! With this new position, I found that I actually really enjoy the payroll and human resource side of office work. So my next step, now that I have some experience, would be to find a better-paying position that specializes in just the human resource side.
I love the people that I work with now, also. Don’t get me wrong, we all have bad days which bring out our bad attitudes, but learning from them has been a fantastic experience.
Choosing stress-free was a great call!
Tell me what you think!
I would love to hear from you! What have been some of your reasons to look for a new job? What was the outcome? Was it positive or negative, or temporarily negative? How did it affect your finances? Please feel free to comment on the post, or send me a message on our Facebook page. I love to chat!
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