Here are five umistakable signs you need a new job or a new career adventure:
When you get to work, you have to think to remember what you’re supposed to be working on.
When your job grows your flame, the issues you deal with at work roll around in your head when you’re at home and everywhere else you go. The problems you get to solve at work are interesting puzzles. When your flame goes out at work, you have a hard time remembering what you’re supposed to do each day. It’s just work, without any excitement or creative challenge.
You find reasons to call in sick, get to work late or leave early.
If your flight is cancelled and you can’t go out of town on a business trip like you were supposed to do, you’ll say “I won’t go into the office – they’re not expecting me. I’ll stay home and sleep.” That’s a sign that your job is not a good fit for you anymore. If any excuse to ditch your desk looks like a good excuse, you’re not doing yourself any favors by sticking around at the job any longer.
You have a harder and harder time tolerating your job, your boss or both.
I remember very well the plastic smile that would stay pasted on my face for a whole day and the times I bit my lip in meetings rather than say something I was dying to say. That’s no way to live. You deserve a job where the energy is positive and uplifting and where you can be yourself at work — don’t you?
You feel sick, sad or angry on Sunday thinking about going to work on Monday.
When your mood is great on Saturday morning but starts to turn gray on Sunday afternoon as you think about the work week ahead, that’s a sign from Mother Nature! You can get a new job and be excited to wake up and dive into a new week. Pay attention to the signals your body is sending you. Ignore them at your peril!
You get sick and you can’t get better.
Everyone get coughs and colds but when you barely recover from one and get hit with the next one, there might be a message for you in the viruses and bacteria that keep attacking you. Your defenses have crumbled, because your life is out of whack. It’s a new year. You can pull back the truck and decide what you really want in a job instead of trudging to a job you already hate.