There is a particular kind of Sunday evening that sends people looking for a new job. It is a bad moment to make a decision, because the feeling is real but the diagnosis is usually wrong. Before you change the job, it is worth checking whether the job is the problem.
1. What specifically is intolerable?
Not “I hate my job.” Name the actual hours. Is it the work itself, the person you report to, the commute, the ceiling above you, or the fact that nobody has said anything encouraging to you in fourteen months? These have very different solutions, and only one of them requires you to leave.
2. What was true the last time you felt good at work?
Go back to a period you would happily repeat. What were you doing, who were you doing it with, and how much of your day did it fill? People are usually chasing a set of conditions rather than a job title, and conditions are portable.
3. What are you willing to give up?
Every move costs something: money, seniority, proximity, certainty, evenings. The people who move well have decided in advance what they will trade. The people who struggle have decided only what they want.
A move you have not costed is a wish. A move you have costed is a plan.
4. Is this a change of job, or a change of life?
Sometimes the work is fine and the life around it is not. More travel, less travel, fewer hours, a different city, a gap of six months. Be honest about which one you are actually shopping for, because a new employer will not solve the second kind.
5. Who benefits if you stay exactly as you are?
This is an uncomfortable question and usually the most useful one. Often a manager, a partner or a version of yourself from ten years ago has an interest in you not moving. Naming that does not make the decision for you, but it does explain why it has been so hard to make.
6. What is the smallest reversible version of this?
Before you resign, find the low-cost test. A conversation with someone doing the work. A short course. A project at the edge of your current role. A month of getting up an hour earlier to see whether you actually want it. Most big career decisions can be trialled at about five per cent of their eventual cost.
Then decide
Once you have answers to all six, the decision often makes itself — and you will notice that it is a smaller, clearer decision than the one you were dreading. If it does not make itself, that is usually a sign the goal is still too vague to act on, which is its own useful finding.
