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Do you need to quit your job if you have a mental health issue or chronic illness?
While I don’t know your unique situation and I can’t tell you what to do, I can share my personal experience with traditional employment, and explain why I quit my job.
I haven’t had a regular job since 2015, when I started working from home as an independent contractor and entrepreneur. When I tell people this, they’re always surprised. They say I’m lucky, that they wish they could do that, and/or make excuses as to why they could never own their own business or work from home.
What they don’t realize is that:
- I work from home because I believe regular jobs are bad for mental health (or at least for my mental health)
- They can do it too!
Keep reading to learn if quitting your job is right for you.
Why Do We Have Jobs?
Chances are, you have a job because you need money. After all, it takes money to pay rent, pay bills, and buy food. However, needing money isn’t a good enough reason to stay in a job or situation that isn’t right for you. Would you do any of the following for money?
- Beg
- Cheat
- Kill
- Lie
- Sell drugs
- Steal
No, I didn’t think so.
While the aforementioned activities range from illegal and deadly, there’s the less obvious end of the spectrum, in the land of “normal” and “familiar. There are the things that “everyone is doing,” so apparently that makes them okay.
- Sitting in rush-hour traffic
- Leaving the house before sunup and coming back after sundown
- Giving the best hours and days of your life to a job, leaving zero time for living out your purpose
- Taking on too much responsibility without adequate compensation
- Being emotionally unavailable to your spouse and kids
- Taking caffeine to stay awake during the day and sleeping pills to fall asleep at night
- Sacrificing our mental health out of fear of being fired
- Sweeping our anxiety and depression under the rug by taking medications, or numbing the pain with alcohol, drugs, or too much TV
Does any of this sound familiar?
Don’t worry, you’re not alone. You’re one of an estimated 158 million Americans working a regular job, trying to make ends meet.
The Problem with Jobs
You can try and justify your behavior all your want, but the bottom line is that traditional jobs are bad for your mental health.
Yes, I know—as a society, we need jobs. We need people to make our coffee, serve our meals, fix our cars, and provide us with other goods and services. But it doesn’t have to be me, and it doesn’t have to be you. And obviously, we need money to live. That’s just the reality of our world today.
The problem is that school teaches us how to be an employee. Stay in line, obey the rules, don’t cause a scene. And heaven help you if you speak out, ask too many questions, or go against the grain. All our lives, we’ve been taught to sit down and shut up. We don’t know that we have other options.
Like most things in life, being an employee is a choice. Participating in traditional employment is a choice. Venturing off of your own and owning a business, that’s a choice, too. But they don’t tell you about self-employment, small business ownership, or *gasp* big business ownership in school. They don’t want you to know that true freedom is possible. Because if you knew the truth, you wouldn’t be one of the sheeple sitting in traffic, giving your best to your boss, giving leftovers to your family. You’d be different, and different is dangerous. Who knows, you might even become mentally stable…
Signs You Need to Quit Your Job
Again, without knowing your unique situation, I can’t possibly tell you whether or not you need to quit your job. But I can share with you some tell-tale signs that it’s time to consider quitting your job.
I know when I was working as an assistant store manager at a major retail chain, my stress, anxiety, depression, eating disorder, perfectionism, and control issues were all glaring signs that I needed to quit my job. You can learn more about my life-changing experience in my memoir, Stress Size: How My Hunger for Control Almost Killed Me.
Some other signs you may need to quit your job include:
- Commuting more than 30 minutes each way
- Spending an excessive amount of money on food, parking, or gas to get to work
- Experiencing stress or anxiety when thinking about work
- Not getting along with your boss or co-workers
- Taking your work home with you
- Obsessively checking your work phone or emails outside of work hours
- Working more than 40 hours a week
- Not getting paid enough for your time
- Failing to take breaks or lunch during your workday
- Being afraid to take a vacation because there’s too much work to do
If you answered YES to any of the above scenarios, you may need to quit your job, find another job, or start your own business to improve your mental health and wellbeing.
Keep reading to learn how you can quit your job and improve your life.
Getting Over the Fear of Quitting Your Job
I get it—quitting your job can be scary. To quit your job, you need to stretch your comfort zone and shift from fear to freedom. It’s not easy, but it’s definitely worth it.
In the past, I’ve said no to well-paying jobs, partially out of fear of taking on too much responsibility, but also because I value my time too much to give it away to a job that would have no problem replacing me with someone better or cheaper. My mental health is worth more to me than any job would ever pay.
The idea of a “safe and secure job” is a myth. More times than I care to count, I’ve walked into my place of employment and have been told that they’re bankrupt, selling the business, or closing up shop. As described in my previous post about new beginnings and starting over, I’ve been jobless on unemployment benefits, food stamps, and state healthcare.
I could have stayed there collecting handouts, and it would have been safe. Nobody would have blamed me for cashing in on benefits that I’d earned by being a victim of circumstance. But I made a choice. I made a choice to be in business for myself, which then allowed me to take charge of my mental health.
When you allow someone else to dictate what time you can wake up, have lunch, use the restroom, leave work, go to sleep, etc., you’re putting your health in someone else’s hands.
If you struggle with mental health issues or chronic illness, you have to ask yourself, is that a risk you’re willing to take? Is the money worth it to you?
You Want to Quit Your Job. Now What?
I know many people are struggling with mental health issues, chronic illness, and other circumstances that make working a traditional job difficult or impossible. That’s why as a spiritual mentor, life coach, and business expansion expert, I’m committed to helping people stress less and achieve more. Check out my tips for how to start a business, even if you have health issues. You can also apply for private coaching here.
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