Reasons for Leaving a Job and Joining the Passion Economy

8 Reasons To Leave your Job Now!

“Why do I need to leave my job now?”

Well, for one, the fact that you are even entertaining this question is a sign that all is not well with your current job. You have been toying with the idea for a while now, and it is about time you got a push to do what you have been dreaming about. But before I begin to list the valid reasons you should quit your current job and chase your dream job, there are some questions you need to ask yourself.

Ask yourself:

“Am I happy with my job?”

“Do I hate the idea of waking every morning to prepare for work?

” “If I had the chance to ditch my job for my passion without any repercussion, would I take it?”

8 Good Reasons To Leave Your Job and Join the Passion Economy

1 – Your Career Dreams Are Different Than Your Reality:

Sometimes, the reason to quit your previous job can be this simple – the reality you live right now is worlds apart from what your dreams. The pain of waking every morning to go to a job that saps the strength out of you is more than enough reason for you to quit.

You don’t get fulfillment from your work; every day is a mindless drone of monotonous activity. You feel your creative juices drying up, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Your daily mantra is to make it through the whole day unscathed. Continuing to do a job that makes you miserable is terrible for your mental, physical, and emotional health. This is why you should follow your passion instead, if not for anything else, but the fulfillment and peace you will derive from it.

2 – Your Career Growth Is Stagnated

One secret that every successful person will tell you, never stop growing or learning. When your job no longer offers you the opportunity to grow, learn something new, or climb up the career ladder, then it is time to move on. Your boss doesn’t look your way when it is time for a promotion, or they get uncomfortable when you mention it; you can’t remember the last time you took on a new challenge that left your heart racing in anticipation. Your career path looks stagnated.

You don’t know what next is in store for you; everything just feels uncertain. You have set career goals that you hope to achieve before a particular time, but it is looking like you will never get there doing your current job, it is time to move on.

3 – You Are Undervalued And Underpaid

You work hard and make sacrifices; you follow all the right steps; still, your pay is crap, and you don’t get a raise. If you are going to be working a job that you barely tolerate, there have to be some perks to it, right? But you work graveyard hours; sometimes you work overtime, and still paying your bills, there is nothing left from your salary to make reasonable savings. You are doing the right things, but it is just not working out; it is not you, it is the job, and you need to leave it. There is a better opportunity out there waiting for you to discover it.

4 -Bad Commute

Bad commute to and from work every day is a dreadful experience and is top three of what makes a bad day worse. Why do you want this? Whether you are sitting in traffic burning gas or sweating on public transport with other commuters, it can really suck to have a daily bad commute experience. If your work is a reasonable distance from home, you have to wake up hours earlier than you need to be just to beat traffic and get to work on time. All that rushing around and early morning stress, and then you’re stuck in traffic for an absurd amount of time. Or when you get off work early, and you don’t get home till 2-4 hours later. All of this stress will eventually take a toll on your body. It is time to quit that job and find one closer to you or work remotely. Freelancing and starting your own online business are other options to help you curb the menace that bad commute is.

5 – Toxic Work Environment:

When your place of current employment has a lot of employees falling sick due to burnout, fatigue, illness, and high levels of stress; when your higher-ups are narcissistic, and believe they are above the rules; when there is little to no enthusiasm for work from employees; when there is a high turnover rate or serial layoffs; when the office environment is divided into cliques that gossip, badmouth, or spread rumors about each other; when the office politics suck and there is so much infighting and paranoia among workers, all of these are red flags that your current company is a toxic work environment. None of this is a company culture that you should partake of. You should treat it the same way you would any other toxic environment – leave!

6 – You Get Bullied

A work environment that spotlights your differences and uses it to make you a target for harassment and bullying is one you probably should not another day at. Signs of bullying include being always left out of the loop, reserving the impossible and disgusting tasks no one else wants for you, or if at all times your current employer yells, berates, or mocks you in front of others.

7 – You Want To Learn Something New

As mentioned before, nobody can be successful if they are not learning new things. But how do you cope with studying when you currently have a demanding job? How will you get the new skills required for a career change if your work schedule won’t let you study? One of them will have to suffer – your job or your studies. There are two solutions you can find; you can find a part-time job that fits your school schedule, or you can start freelancing as a side hustle until you have enough money to turn it into a fulltime job.

8 – There Is No Future

Is your job secure? Five years from now, can you say for sure that Artificial Intelligence will not take over your job? How often are there layoffs in your organization? Is there a looming possibility that your work would acquire new management? What are the chances of being kept on if there is? Is the business model, your current company, operates on obsolete? How certain are you that the company has a future? If you are not sure about these things, it is time to create a solid back up plan and jump ship.

People Who Left Their Jobs And Are Now Happier Than Ever

Melyssa Griffin

Blogger and online entrepreneur, quit her last job as a preschool teacher in Japan because she hated it, but guess what she discovered along the line? Her love for blogging and graphic design. Her former employer gave her the task to create flyers for a school program because she so happened to bring her laptop to work that day. That was how she stumbled on her passion.

Within three months of stumbling on her career as a freelance web designer, she was making enough money to quit her teaching job to pursue blogging and design full-time.

In 2014, she shared her experience after she quit her job,

“In July 2013, I launched “Bumble + Buzz Design” (now “The Nectar Collective Design”) — a lengthy play on words of the “nectar” theme. My first month in business, I made about $900 –  which, albeit small – as an accidental business owner, was unbelievably exciting. It was hardly enough to pay my rent, but I knew it could be much more if I took a higher leap… I think I made around $1,800 during my third month in business – not an insignificant amount, but certainly not livable in Tokyo, or California, where I would soon return to. Despite my arguably mediocre paycheck, I felt compelled to pursue this gig full time. Somewhere in my heart, I knew that if I put in the work, especially without a day job eating up my time, I’d be able to do it.

Now, after freelancing for about a year, I can safely say it’s been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Aside from reaching monetary goals, I never really would have thought possible, I’ve also cultivated a sense of inner-happiness, independence, and success that are deeply meaningful to my life.”

Thomas Traplin

A virtual gamer and game store entrepreneur, wanted a story with a happy ending – he decided to rewrite his story by following his passion. He quit his job as an operations supervisor to start his podcast and website. He said,

“When I started my website and podcast over two years ago, I wasn’t sure where it would go. All I had was an idea, and I decided to run with it. I didn’t plan on becoming a full-time freelancer at the time.

I didn’t know if anyone would want to listen to me. I didn’t know if anyone would be interested in the topic of game store entrepreneurship. I didn’t know much about producing a podcast or building websites back then, either.

What I knew for sure was that I wanted to be a part of the exciting opportunity that the internet represented and that I had things to say. I didn’t know at the time what impact that choice would ultimately have on my life. I’ve met a ton of awesome people through the interviews I’ve done on the Manaverse Podcast. A select few of which I consider friends.

In fact, my experience with the podcast has led to a few unexpected opportunities as well. I’ve recently been able to quit my day job as an Operations Supervisor and earn a living online as a full-time freelancer. This means working from a computer in my home office and being able to spend way more time with my wife and nearly two-year-old son. Handing in your resignation letter to a job you have come to despise is, as I’m sure many of you know, very sweet. I believe that virtually anyone has the skills and can learn the skill set to earn a living online. You just have to want it enough to stick to it and keep trying.”

Erika Awakening

quit her job as a lawyer to pursue a career in lifestyle coaching, healing, and blogging. She makes about $370,000 per year

“I quit my job as a lawyer five years ago, now self-employed. For me, this was a process that unfolded over five years. The pivotal starting moment was a near-death experience. In one week, my perspective on my prestigious career changed radically. At the time, though, I had a mortgage and a lifestyle requiring a six-figure income. I was not ready to quit just then.

I spent the next few years of learning. In my evening and weekend and holiday time, I started reading books, taking workshops, studying with healers and coaches. I turned my own social life around with these skills and then began teaching others. At first, I would help friends and others for free.

Then about 2.5 years after, I started a blog. People started coming to my blog. I began to receive invitations to be a speaker at events. It became clear that I could build a business around the blog as a coach and healer. So I did…”

Frank Cleary

“When I was 26, I had just finished six years in the Navy as a nuclear technician.  I had done an excellent job and been a leader in my field.  I would have all but been guaranteed a near 6 figure job offer at a civilian power plant pulling a Homer Simpson.  But after doing it for six years, I also knew I would despise doing that for a career.

I started traveling. I bought a one-way ticket to Mexico City and spent four months backpacking through Central America... I got the idea that I would begin to make apps and sell them on the app store. I knew nothing about programming but had my general engineering background. At the time, there weren’t any learning resources much beyond YouTube videos, blogs, and Stack Overflow. I bought an old used MacBook on eBay for $200 that shut off and lost all my work whenever it was unplugged. It took me 3 to 4 months of 8 hours per day learning and working on launching my first app, and when it finally hit the store, I made about $20.  It was a bit of a blow.

But I was hooked because I had found something I loved to do. Both technical and creative.  Something that gave me the freedom to travel and live where I wanted but that I could also grow and learn in every day. I met someone who wished to build his idea, and I charged him a flat fee to build it.  I spent another three months and made the equivalent of about $2 to $3 per hour when his app was finally launched to the store.

After having one client and two apps in my portfolio, I started reaching out to other projects.  I made a website.  I bumped my rates.  I hired remote developers to subcontract.  I learned voraciously.  I continued to travel the world, working during the day and seeing the sights at nights and on weekends. Somewhere in year 3, I started getting contacted by headhunters and took a corporate contract for six months building out an app.  I told them I didn’t have any formal or academic training.  They didn’t care.  They gave me a tech job interview.  I started right away.  I got my first paycheck and said, haha, I did it!  I’m finally making a real paycheck doing what I love.”

Andrew Youderian

quit his job as an investment banker because of the 60 to 80 hour weeks, unpredictable schedule, and inability to commit to people or plans quickly grew draining, especially for work that he didn’t love, to be an e-commerce entrepreneur. In 2011, he was able to take a 7-month long vacation that took him and his wife to more than 20 countries. The trip was primarily financed by over 2 million frequent flier miles he had generated by paying to fulfill business orders.

“I decided to quit and started to save as much money as possible. I kept my beater college car longer than necessary to save more money – a car so hideous I had to park it blocks from the office. I banked 100% of the bonuses I received and earned a reputation around the office as a bit of a miser.

In November of 2007, I quit. It’s both an exhilarating and slightly terrifying feeling to leave a good job to start your own business. After a solo cross-country road trip, I settled down to start building my future. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I did, however, identify the required characteristics I wanted my new venture to have.

It’s amazing how a total lack of income motivates you to action for a new opportunity. After exploring several potential ideas, I quickly settled on e-commerce as a business model that fit all my criteria. I opened up a bank account with $1,500, created an LLC, and picked a niche: CB radios.

Within a month, I had my website online and live. Shortly after launch, I received my first order. As any business owner will tell you, few things compare to the thrill of your first sale, and it provided an incredible motivational boost.

Slowly but surely, everything began to pay off. Within a year, I was making enough to support myself and my wife. Within two years, I launched a second e-commerce site, TrollingMotors.net, and shortly after that hired my first full-time local employee.”

Keynotes to take away from these stories:

Are you a creative, influencer, creator, or entrepreneur at heart?

The Time Is Now For You To Start Doing The Things You Love – a new job that matters to you. A new job that will offer you the luxury of time to spend with your loved ones; a job that gives you the option of vacation; a job that guarantees continual growth and learning; a job that offers you no discrimination or bullying; a secure job; a job that provides you peace, satisfaction, and happiness; a job that can fund the kind of life you desire.

Think about all you have read and the benefits of quitting your job to chase your dreams. Do you still have questions that still plaque your mind about pursuing your passion? Share with me in the comment section; I just might be able to help you find clarity.