Psychology: Wanting to Quit Your Job. The Secrets of Changing Jobs Without Stress, Self-Doubt, or Repeating Mistakes

AVAlexander Volchek

In today's world, one in two people is dissatisfied with their job and where they are. Every day they come to work, sit there, and something feels wrong. They think, “Maybe I need to change jobs,” or, “I definitely need to.” There's irritation, stress, and anger toward their workplace. In today's video, we'll examine why you want to leave and why you don't leave. We'll find specific actions so that by the end, you can reach the right decision about what to do now: stay in your current job or leave after all. At the end, I'll give you a bonus secret to make success even more likely. You're on Alexander Volchek's channel. Here, I talk about business, life, and spirituality, the areas of life that let you expand and develop. I think there are tens of millions of people on Earth today dreaming of changing jobs. Internally, they're dissatisfied with their current work. In life, people want to change many things. Some want a different family, some a different place to live, different clothes or appearance, and some a different job.

All of this comes from a starting point of not accepting your own life. There's a fundamental inner cause: dissatisfaction with what's happening around you. In this video, we'll examine in detail what to do when, for months or possibly years—or as a recurring pattern—you've felt your current job isn't for you. There can be completely different reasons for that. We'll consider all these reasons today. Watch to the end. I'll explore their nature in depth and, most importantly, give specific recommendations step by step throughout the video. How to act so that this state doesn't merely diminish or disappear, but doesn't recur in a new workplace or five or ten years later. We think changing jobs will make it disappear. And so you can feel harmony within yourself regardless of where you are. Today, though, we're specifically examining the feeling you have when you want to change jobs and something doesn't satisfy you.

Some might say, “I'm generally satisfied,” or, “I'm partly satisfied.” This video is also about preventing that dissatisfied state from arising. I make many videos here about business, life, spirituality, and personal development. Liking this video or subscribing is a powerful way to support the channel in return. People often think it's unnecessary, unfashionable, or that a person living consciously simply observes. YouTube really does have algorithms, and this action helps me enormously too. Please do it right now. It's a great help. Let's look at the reasons you may want to change jobs. Understanding them lets us arrive at specific decisions. We'll examine them through a range of examples during the video. Reasons vary. First, dissatisfaction with pay. Perhaps dissatisfaction with the colleagues around you. Perhaps with your direct manager. Perhaps with the actions you perform every day.

Maybe there's too much work, and it's damaging your health. Maybe conditions at work are very poor. Maybe you work in person and want to work remotely, or work remotely and want to work in person. Maybe you've heard the company's shareholders are strange people, or seen them speak and disliked it. Maybe your husband, wife, acquaintances, friends, or parents say it's a bad job. Maybe you feel the current work won't benefit you in the future. Doing it feels like wasting time, precious time you won't be able to recover. Maybe you're missing another opportunity because people around you are succeeding. We live in a world full of cases and success stories. Today, everyone can see an incredible number of them. Twenty years ago, you had to buy a book to read a success story, and there were tens of thousands of times fewer of those books.

Today, that content streams endlessly through social media, books, television, YouTube, everywhere. There's an enormous amount of success-story content. On one hand, other people's success stories often make you want to do something, take action. On the other, they cause fear, depression, discomfort, and doubt. A third layer is aggression toward those people, judgment, and rationalizations about why they succeeded while you personally may not have. There's a wide range of reasons. When the thought of leaving arises, the first thing is to capture that list of reasons. Sit down and write them out in as much detail as you can, regardless of which ones are higher or lower priority. The main thing is to bring a whole series of reasons into view. Having and knowing them will help you find the right decision for you now. Broadly, the main decision will look like this: continue working at your current job, transform, and find new possibilities for resolving things—or urgently get out of there without postponing it.

Open the comments now and write why you changed jobs last time. What was the reason? Why did you make the change? Now let's examine why people stay despite a whole series of major reasons, or a few reasons, for dissatisfaction and wanting to leave. Why don't they go? They may have a steady income they critically need to support themselves and their family. They may have contracts or contractual obligations that make leaving legally problematic. They may have made a promise to the people they joined and reached an agreement with: “I can't leave because we agreed. We have a particular agreement.” Those are simple reasons for staying. There are deeper, more fundamental reasons. A person may stay because their current job is stable, and they fear they won't succeed in a new one.

They won't succeed in the new place. They may stay because they don't understand the procedure: how to resign and start a new job at the same time. So many people first leave, then start looking. There are many possibilities. You can quit and find a new job, or find a new job and then quit. Or find a new job, start it, and resign while already working both jobs. Different possibilities. Someone may stay for fear of being judged, misunderstood by colleagues, or unsupported by family. Support for your action is one of the key points for you. Write it on a sheet of paper right now. In this short video, I'll try to give you many directions and details so that by the end, and with a little reflection afterward, you can reach a decision or choose a direction toward one. A calm, quick direction for deciding exactly what to do now.

They may—

Someone may not want to leave because they're waiting for a bonus, quarterly or sometimes annual. They may have been promised a possible bonus, or promised that conditions might change: a new position, role, or area of responsibility. Or they're told that soon they'll be doing a quarter as much work. They're only working so much now; it'll become much easier. If you stayed in a job for a long time because something held you back, or something holds you back now, write that reason in the comments. Record it now. Open the comments and put it down. On one hand, we've examined why people want to leave—why you personally want to, or why the thought even arises. On the other, we've briefly listed reasons people don't make that decision. Yours may differ. When someone wants water, they simply go and drink it. There's a very clear reason and an action.

Here, there are reasons for the urge to change jobs, and reasons not to do it. As you watch this video, note the examples and reasons I'm describing. Then sit down and be sure to record your reasons for not leaving. Write them for yourself, write them down, and, if possible, identify additional reasons of your own. There can be many. Once you've written both lists, take a fairly simple action that will again help you decide today what to do. Formulate the goal you want to achieve in the next one, two, or three years. A very simple, near-term goal. What do you really need? Perhaps you want to reach a stable income level within a few years. You're earning five hundred dollars a month and want to earn a thousand. Or you want a stable job with steady income that doesn't involve endless overtime. Or a good workplace where managers don't swear at you.

Or a workplace where you can form a new circle of colleagues who become friends and acquaintances. Or a new job as a point of strong professional growth. Many people say they want to leave because, “We're not growing professionally here. We're deteriorating badly. We want to develop professionally and move forward.” Or, “I want to leave so that in three years I can earn a certain lump sum.” Record this simple goal now. Do the simple exercise of setting a goal for one, two, or three years. Once you know it, first ask yourself, “Can I achieve this goal in my current workplace, or do I need to change jobs to achieve it?” As I said at the start, after changing jobs you may develop another list of reasons and desires to leave, and another list of reasons you don't. You may move into exactly the same situation.

It'll be slightly different, with other details and factors, but those reasons will arise again. People often choose a job without understanding a goal: why they came there. If I come to work knowing exactly why I'm there, doing it consciously, I pay a little less attention to difficulties when I understand the current job is leading me toward my goal. For example, when I was a student studying programming, it was important for me to find a job while still a student. I looked and set a criterion: the money wasn't important; I just needed to start working. Honestly, even where I worked wasn't particularly important. I remember interviewing for a merchandising job and interviewing for a programming job. A strange choice, seemingly wrong in the long run, but my short-term goal was simply to start working. Spend a little time with that idea of a short-term goal and consider what yours is for one, two, or three years.

Back then, that goal mattered to me over a few months. I was lucky: I started working as a programmer, not a merchandiser. Why lucky? Because I wasn't looking a little further ahead, and in the long run, my role, what I did, my team, my managers, and how much I earned all mattered a great deal. Of course, throughout those years, the right goal for one, two, or three years would have been to gain professional experience. If I had an acquaintance studying programming now, the first thing I'd suggest is choosing the right place, forming a clear picture of the company to join so they can take the next step in one, two, or three years. That picture of the company helps you set the next goal ahead, already understanding your direction over five, ten, or fifteen years. It's a slightly complicated subject. Let's return to at least this understanding: if I were a programmer, or knew a programming student now, I'd recommend a goal of professional achievement and experience in a particular place, rather than earning money.

If money is absolutely critical and you can't do without it—if you need to feed your family, parents, husband, wife, children, other relatives, or repay debts—then of course money can be the goal. I was simply giving an example. Formulate your own goal, but over a slightly longer horizon. People often make decisions in their current reality out of fear. Imagine you've decided to change jobs because the atmosphere is truly unbearable. You leave and want to find another job. When you left, you hadn't fully identified the real reason. You spent a long time on this and haven't found a new job. You become afraid it will take a long time, and start making job-search decisions based not on what you really want in two or three years, but on the simple task, “I just need to find a new job again.” You recreate the same events as before. You'll recreate them anyway because you ran away from one place and moved to another because you were running away.

Don't run away. If you know your goals and say, “In one, two, or three years, I want to reach this target or accomplish this task,” then look at your current job and ask yourself, “Can I, where I am now...

Arrange things so that in two years I'll earn a certain amount every month? Or earn a certain total, save it, and put it aside? Or pay off all my debts? Or grow professionally, gain new knowledge, and obtain a particular position? I don't know, perhaps I want to be a director. Or can I find and form new friendships and acquaintances here?” First, examine your current job neutrally in relation to that goal, as though it were a new job, not an old one. It's important not to run away. After many years of my life—I have twenty years of professional experience, more actually: twenty-one, twenty-two, or twenty-three years—I can say the most important advice I'd give myself is to make a decision without running away. If I'm in a particular place, consider whether I can achieve my near-term goal here and now, under the current conditions, without looking for new ones.

Because seeking new conditions is often an escape, and it may simply lead to repetition. I've had this in my life: I'd run away, and it would repeat. Run away, and it would repeat. Run away, and it would repeat. At some point, I said, “Stop. This time, I won't run away.” I didn't, and the repetition stopped. Sit down calmly and examine your current job. As a rule, as a rule, half of people will find a solution within their current job. As a rule. If you see any solution there, I recommend trying it for three, four, or five months, some period—at least more than a day, two days, or a week—with this inner approach: “I understand why I want to leave. I understand why I don't. But now I have a precise goal, and it seems it may be achievable in this company. I'll try working here with the thought that I don't want to leave.” Experience the workplace anew, moving through it differently based on your goal.

Within the next five minutes, I'll give you an important secret about what else to do so those three, four, five, or six months go very successfully and well for you. If you've formulated and stated a normal, simple human goal that makes sense to you, and it definitely can't be achieved in one, two, or three years at your current workplace, you can decide to move to the next procedure. The next actions are to understand what kind of job it could be, what company, where it should be located, how quickly you can approach it, and begin moving toward it. Start that process, but absolutely don't leave your current company yet. As you watch this video and write down these things—both sets of reasons, your goal, whether you can achieve it at your current job—you start a process of changing yourself. Spend a little time with that too. Don't make the decision immediately.

Give yourself at least two weeks, even if things are already critical and you've wanted to run away, and finally you see this video and think, “Damn, exactly. I agree with Alexander, and I'm definitely changing jobs.” Wait a little, then form your decision. It will emerge. One set of reasons, the other set, a clear goal. You'll begin to see the picture much more clearly. Now, back to the secret that makes staying at your current company a very good experience, whether you know you can achieve your goal there or know you can't. Suppose you work there, have reasons for wanting to leave, reasons for staying, and a one-year goal you understand can't be achieved in this company. Yet you see that staying another six months could help you reach it in a year, a year and a half, or two years, whatever time frame you've set. That happens often. You might obtain better references from the company, gain more relevant experience, or try something there that will help you later.

Or keep working and earning money there while studying for a new qualification or profession, or improving skills to find a new job. Or to start your own business. You say, “I no longer want to be an employee. I want to start my own business. That's my goal.” Here, an action matters that creates a balance in which you deceive neither yourself nor the company. Then the company really will help you. Examine the company's goal for the coming year, your manager's goal, or, if you lead the company, what its shareholders want. Try to align the company's goal with the actions that will help you take your next step. Perhaps simply staying for six months, or trying new tasks over those six months, alongside the company's goal. Help the company achieve its goal while clearly understanding that you're helping it and it's helping you achieve yours.

If you keep helping the company along the path your managers or shareholders envision, but that path has no connection to your goal, nothing will work. You need to align them. In recent videos about teamwork and incentive systems—you can find them on the channel—I gave an interesting example that fits well here. I once managed a company, and my incentives were strongly integrated with the company's goal. When I first joined to manage it, the company needed a high valuation and high value. My incentives were directly, strongly tied to that: if the company achieved a high valuation and value, I immediately earned a lot of money. That's precisely why I joined. That was my main goal. At some point, the company's goal changed from being worth a lot to earning a large net profit. Not so much earning it, not so much the shareholders receiving that net profit, but having the net profit shown on a piece of paper.

There were other goals I didn't even understand. But I saw and heard that the most important thing was for the company to have a profit. I understood that my goal wasn't linked to that profit: if the company made a profit, I personally received and earned nothing from it. Over several years, in the long term, my goals no longer matched the company's. I'd change places, start a new business or businesses, take another job—it didn't matter. But while I continued working there, I needed to align my own goal with the company's direction. I did everything possible to change my incentives so they were tied to that profit. I changed them and went through that stage in the right way. Afterward, of course, it was already clear my focus would shift, because my future goal differed, as did the company's. Take these simple actions: write down now why you want to leave and why you aren't leaving.

Your goal for one, two, or three years, whatever period you understand. Then see whether it's achievable in this company or somewhere else. Within this company, align your own goal with what the company actually needs. Your goal might simply be not to get fired for six months. Fine. Look at what the company needs done, and work every day toward a particular result for the company, rather than merely trying not to get fired. If you do that, in a year or two you'll see the most—

Important thing: the events will stop recurring where you're constantly stressed and in that difficult inner state of wanting to change jobs, feeling you're doing the wrong thing. When work makes you feel you're doing the wrong thing, you feel something is wrong in your life overall. That “something is wrong” spreads to everything: what you eat, where you sleep and live, your friends, parents, family, husband, wife, children. It spreads all around you. You begin to feel something is wrong everywhere. That can lead to enormous problems later in life. Perhaps today's video gave you a very simple immediate solution, a current next step. You're not thinking ten or twenty years ahead. Perhaps later, after this has passed, problems will repeat, you'll lose things or gain things. You'll remember and realize that what really matters isn't what happens in two years, but what's happening right now and, at the same time, what will happen thirty or forty years from now.

I recently made a video on this channel about precisely that: what's important, planning forty years ahead or living right now? Please like this video, especially if you've reached this point. It helps me and my channel enormously. Subscribe. That helps tremendously. What helps most is a real, personal comment. Even if you just say thank you, say what you liked, or write about a fear or reason you have. It would be especially good to write your reasons for wanting to leave, your reasons for staying, and your goal. Even briefly, put it down for yourself. You'll show responsibility toward yourself, because the only person responsible for your current problem is you. See you soon on my channel.