Below are 3 things you should consider before quitting your job.
The power of negativity
Most of us can think of many reasons why to quit our jobs. It comes easy to the human mind which is somewhat hardwired towards negativity, in that it is much easier to focus and exasperate negative thoughts than to take the positive out of something. This rings true for all people in all walks of life. Researchers claim that negative events will weigh three times heavier than positive events on the human mind.
For example, five Grammy award winning superstar Mariah Carey regularly talks about her struggle with low self-esteem. Billionaire celebrities, Oprah Winfrey and Rihanna, decades of success, also suffer from negative self-doubt when forced with criticism.
Experiencing threats
The human-mind has evolved from a time when the world was full of threats to survival, from stone-age man who was forced with a plethora of wild animals that could easily kill him to more recent times, where two world wars carried with them a myriad of threats to survival. In these situations, it was good practice to focus on the negatives and to be very sensitive to threats as this self-preservation mechanism usually resulted in survival.
However, in today’s work environment, we are not under the same level of threat, yet our minds still focus on negative outcomes. For example, you may have had a recent work review where you received fantastic recognition for a job well done and at the end of your review, your boss mentions a few small areas for improvement. What do you focus on? Most of us will ignore the positive platitudes and focus in on the areas for improvement. Hence, in our minds, the review was negative, and consequently it is time to move on.
Financial position
If quitting straight away will put you in a financially precarious position, you over-exasperate carefully consider your position before you over-exasperate the negatives.
In conclusion, be cognisant of how the human mind works. For each negative, try to list positive. Don’t quit in a fit of anger. However, after objective reflection, if the negatives still outweigh the positive, your initial gut reaction to leave was correct and you should proceed at looking at new opportunities.
