When it comes to your career, it can be hard to know when you should stick it out at a job or when it is time to switch.
While we cannot make your decision for you, we can go over some helpful tricks and tips in order to help you make a decision.
Take some time to reflect on your current situation
You might want to take some time to think deeply about your career and your job up until this point.
Some questions to get started:
Are you just going through a rough patch? Will things get better if you stick it out? What if you could make more money? Are you still passionate about this career at all?
Stepping back from the emotions you are currently feeling to get an overall view of the situation you are in can help.
Do you have room to grow?
The first thing you will want to think about is if you have room to grow.
Can you advance in your career? Learn new things? Get a promotion?
You might not care about growth at all and might be happy right where you are, but most people do care about it so you should take that into consideration.
If you think you have peaked in your current position, that might be a sign to switch.
Know that job switching is common
While the old messaging of jobs is that you pick a job and stay there until you retire, that is no longer true.
Most people often switch jobs and keep looking for new ways to grow or work at new companies.
Focus on your own career and growth before you worry about what your coworkers would think or say.
Don't stay out of guilt
A lot of companies are on the trend of calling their employees "family", the truth is that if you were to quit tomorrow, the company would be perfectly fine.
Many people stay loyal to a company and then when layoffs happen, they still get cut from the team.
You can care about your coworkers and the company you work for, but at the end of the day, you are in charge of your own career and growth.
Your environment stresses you out more than makes you happy
All jobs naturally have some levels of stress, but if you find yourself more stressed and burned out on average than you enjoy your job, it might be a sign to switch jobs.
Your job might even be completely toxic and problematic, which is definitely a sign you should leave.
No job is worth your mental or physical health.
You want to do something else
There are a lot of people who go to school and build an entire career, only to realize they actually hate what they do.
While you might mentally think you should "stick it out" and suffer through, since you already put in so much time and energy, that is not always the best option.
This is called the "sunk-cost fallacy, which is, "the phenomenon whereby a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial."
Just because you put a lot of time into a career does not mean you need to continue to push through something that does not fit in your life.
The pay is not worth it
While money isn't everything, it sure is a lot. If you cannot afford your basic living necessities, that might be a sign you need to change jobs.
They might be asking you to do more than you ever planned, cutting your hours spontaneously, or just simply not paying you enough per hour.
You deserve to make enough to survive and live a life you want. You need to get paid what you are worth.
No work / life balance
You might be in an era of your life where you need to work hard and put in some extra focus to get ahead in your career, which is understandable.
What is not understandable, is never having any kind of balance so you are constantly burned out and exhausted.
If you are in a situation or career like that, know that there are options available for you to get out and find something that is a better fit.