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January 24, 2022 • 16 mins
In this podcast, we dive deeper into the conversation around why people are afraid to quit their job. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone is comfortable joining the great resignation. Quitting your job can trigger paralyzing fear, preventing them from realizing something greater. Here, we will discuss why people are so fearful and examine a few tips that listeners might consider to assist them in taking the big leap. This podcast touches on the content that I covered in my article on MahoganySpeakstoYou.com. https://mahoganyspeakstoyou.com/career/why-are-people-afraid-to-quit-their-job/
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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:12):
Hey, folks, welcome to another episode of the Mahogany Speaks
to You dot Com podcast, where we discuss pop culture, lifestyle,
career management, and entertainment news. Listen. I know every topic
won't be for everyone, but if you hear something you like,
please take a moment to like and follow this podcast.
If you are viewing this podcast on YouTube, take a

(00:35):
moment to like the video, subscribe to the channel, and
hit the notification bells so that you can receive notice
each time I upload a new video. So hey, I'm
your host, Lexi Maharian. In this episode, we are going
to dive into why people are afraid to quit their jobs.
Despite all of the reports that are out there about

(00:56):
the millions of people who are quitting their jobs or
moving on to greener pastures, believe it or not, there
is still a small segment of the workforce that is
afraid to quit their jobs. So in this episode, we're
going to dive into a few of those reasons for
why folks are afraid to quit their jobs, and if
you are among that population, a few steps that you

(01:17):
can take to maybe help alleviate some of your fears
and edge you towards you know, potentially changing your life.
So you know, are you among those folks who are
afraid to quit their job? You know, creating the perfect
roadmap can help you to lay a path for how
to get there, how to comfortably prepare yourself to quit
your jobs. Listen, I get it. After spending so many

(01:40):
years of your life in school, focusing on your career,
working your way up the ladder, the decision to potentially
leave your job can invoke some intense emotions, right. I mean,
you have committed yourself over and over again to a
particular workplace. Right. You've been riding the roller coasters, how
eyes and lows in your career, as well as the

(02:03):
constant change or the lack of change that may be
happening within your workplace. So the decision to leave can
definitely invoke some feelings of anxiety, make you feel a
bit sad, right, particularly if you've established some relationships with
some of the workers and your location, and also leave
you a bit frustrated because potentially, maybe you weren't looking

(02:25):
to leave your job, but you are in a position
now that you really need to start making some hard decisions.
You may also feel a bit frustrated with yourself because
you can't quite commit to taking the big leap, But
you have to consider what are the factors that are
making you even contemplate leaving your job. Are you leaving
because there's a bit of career stagnation, you know, meaning

(02:47):
you're not able to really move up in your job.
Maybe you're bored, you don't feel challenged anymore. Are you
experiencing work life balance issues. Maybe you're among the group
of people who feel underappreciated for all of the hard
work you do. Maybe you've identified that you've got a
job mismatch where you just never should have been put

(03:09):
in the position that you're in, or should be working
in the position that you are at this point in time.
And then finally, sometimes there's just a bit of self
discovery going on, you know, with everything that has happened
over the last twelve to eighteen months, it's understandable that
people are deciding to leave because they're figuring out that
they have been giving their life, perhaps to a job

(03:32):
that doesn't really define them, it doesn't meet their personal needs,
and you know, it's just not where they should be anymore.
So if you are asking yourself if you should quit
your job, it's likely you've you know, been experiencing some
of the things that I just mentioned, right that are
weighing on you. It's weighing on your mind, your body,

(03:52):
your spirit. Right, perhaps you start your day out, you know,
feeling a specific way emotionally, have a sense of dread
about going into the office. You know, we'll talk about
that in a moment, but it's you know, it's likely
that some of the things that I've already mentioned that's
just weigh on you. And so you are potentially now

(04:13):
in that place where you're ready to leave, but you're
afraid to quit your job. Right, So here are some
of the reasons why we know people sometimes are slow
to quit their jobs, and potentially, you know, maybe this
is why, after everything that happened in the last eighteen months,
some people have gotten over these things that I'm about
to talk about. So the first thing is the fear

(04:35):
of the unknown. You know, you have a sense of
familiarity with where you are today. Most likely, particularly if
you've been there for a few years, you likely or
familiar with who the players are. You know, the processes,
the policies, the procedures. You could pretty much, you know,
predict what's going to happen in your day, just as
you can predict the fact that the sun is going

(04:56):
to come up and that it's going to set at
the end of each day. You know, if you're currently
in a hostile climate, sometimes you may find yourself rationalizing
that you prefer to deal with the enemy you know
than the one you don't. You know, throw in some
warnings from your peers right who are coming at you
about the grass not being greener on the other side,

(05:17):
and it can definitely cause your level of fear to
rise and prevent you from quitting your job. Maybe you
have a fear of failure. You know, the idea of
stepping out taking a leap is daunting for some people.
So quitting your job obviously is not going to be
the exception to this rule. You know, you are stepping

(05:41):
out on a leap of faith that potentially you're going
to find a better job, maybe you're going to find
a higher paying job, maybe you'll get an opportunity to
do something different. But all at the same time, you
might have this nagging feeling that's saying, you know, hey,
what if you fail? You know, you're thinking, what if
I fail? And how long is it going to take
me to establish myself with my new company in the

(06:03):
same way that I did it with my old company.
You know, these questions likely bounce around in your head
and you know, trigger a sense of you know, the
fear of failure. You know, you're just afraid that you're
not going to live up to some expectation and therefore,
you know, obviously this leads to hesitancy on your part. Also,

(06:25):
the thought of embarrassing yourself, you know, experiencing shame if
things don't pan out quite the way you hoped, you know,
contributes to that fear of failure, the fear of leaving
your job. Another reason people are afraid to quit their
job includes the potential for the loss of income. Now,
this is an understandable, you know fear that you might have.

(06:47):
Perhaps you are well compensated where you are, or maybe
you were barely making ends meet, and the idea of
walking away from a bad situation may not outweigh the
financial needs that you have. You know, we love our
fancy cars, our fabulous homes. The ability to get of
Anila latte or ice white chocolate mocha from Starbucks every

(07:10):
day is you know, potentially alluring, attractive thing that you
want to keep available, keep you know, right at your fingertips,
and you can only do that with the job that
you have today. The thought of having to give up
life's little luxuries can function as a deterrent. You know,
the idea that you're gonna have to give up some
part of your lifestyle is scary. You know, millions of

(07:34):
us left pay to check paycheck to paycheck, and we're
barely able to make means or you know, make our
ends meet. And so again, the ability to exit stage
left may not be possible for you as well, or
it may not feel possible in that moment, because again,
you're comfortable with what you know, and what you know
is you can expect to bring home X number of

(07:54):
dollars every two weeks, and this helps you to meet
your financial needs. Now, the next thing that sometimes prevents
us from taking the grand leap is coping with change,
and change can be a difficult pill to swallow. You know,
planned or unplanned changes force us to confront a metamorphosis

(08:15):
of sorts. You know, there is comfort and not having
to take risks. You know. What you may not know
is that change, however, is not always an abrupt or
risky event that you have to overcome. You know, we
move through a series of changes throughout our lives, you know,
whether we want to or not. Consciously or so unconsciously,

(08:35):
we're moving through change all the time, whether it's changing
the way we look, you know, our hair looks, cooking dinner,
maybe we change the way we eat, the way we
clean our bathrooms. You know, the decision to make a
long lasting life change does not happen overnight, so you know,
before real change occurs, we often move through a series

(08:56):
of stages of change. Talk about change for a moment.
You know, change is a significant factor that prevents people
from moving on or you know, changing some aspect of
their life. And according to Pechaska, many of us move
through a series of stages of change. You know. And

(09:19):
so the fact that if you're still listening to this
podcast about why people don't quit their jobs, it's likely
that you may be pre contemplating change, or maybe you
know someone who's pre contemplating making a change in their life.
And that basically entails the fact that you just have
an awareness that you want to make a change. You're
not necessarily planning to leave anytime soon, but in the

(09:41):
back of your mind, you likely have a sense of
a need to want to make a change. For example,
you might be you might find yourself often complaining NonStop
to family or friends or anyone who will lend you
an ear about how horrible it is to work where
you work, or how unchallenged you feel about what it

(10:04):
is you do for a living. And you may find
yourself just kind of wishing something miraculous could happen to
push you into motion and steer you away from doom.
But again, often in a pre contemplation stage, you have
no real set plans for what you're going to do
to change, and the contemplation stage of change, however, you're

(10:25):
starting to weigh some options. You know, what are some
actions that you might take to stop feeling the way
you do? So Sometimes you know, again you're not necessarily
looking outside the walls during contemplation, during the contemplation stage,
but maybe you're looking within your organization. Maybe you're looking
at what might I do differently at my job? What

(10:46):
are some opportunities to stretch myself so that I still
enjoy what I do. If you're looking outside of the
you know where you work, it's possible that you may
be starting to skim some of the job postings on
some of the job boards out there, are the online
job boards you may be looking at. You know what
your potential options are going to be. The contemplation stage

(11:10):
is where you will likely spend a lot of your
time as you're weighing the idea of change. So don't
be surprised if you find yourself contemplating a change for
almost a year. You know where you're weighing the pros
and cons, the costs, the risks. You know, don't be
too hard on yourself about doing this. This is a
necessary part of change for some of us. We have to,

(11:32):
you know, evaluate all of the potential ups and downs
and outcomes of our decision. And during the preparation stage
of change, you are walking down the path of change.
You know, for example, you might know with certainty that
you are going to leave your place of employment. You know,

(11:52):
perhaps you're you've been looking outside for a job and
you are preparing your resume right you're update, you're getting
it ready to post. If you have a side hustle
or a business that's been generating income, you're looking at
how you're going to go about making it a full
time activity, and you've probably started mapping out your exit plan.

(12:15):
You know, how are you going to leave, When are
you going to leave, What does it mean for your
bank accounts? Do you have enough money sitting over here
to support the move? Maybe you're going to pay off
your car before you exit. Whatever decision you're going to make,
it's likely you have initiated, you know, a lot of
activity around the change. Next, we have the action stage,

(12:37):
So this is where you're going to actually pull the trigger,
turn in your resignation notice or you've actually turned it
in at this point and you are in the mode
of doing You are committed to your exit strategy, you
have most of what you need to push forward, and
you're a person in motion at this point. Finally, during
the maintenance stage of your change, you know, hopefully you've

(13:01):
realized your desire for freedom from a bad job, and
you know you know hopefully you're living your best life.
You have actually completed your change and you're now looking
at you know what's going well with the change. You're
making some adjustments and improvements, and you're avoiding any sense

(13:22):
of regret. You might take some notes about lessons learned,
some things you might have done differently, but you're not
going to swim in the pool of regrets once you
hit the maintenance stage. If you are thinking about changing
your job or leaving the workplace, definitely consider where you
are in the stages of change because it is a

(13:43):
change that you're going to be making your life. Have
you done all the things necessary to support where you
are at that point? Do you need to wait a
little bit longer before you take the big leap? Would
that make you feel better? And you know, just kind
of make sure that before you make any rash decisions
that you are definitely, you know, in a place to

(14:06):
be able to do that or to some extent. I
know there are some people who will tell you just
take the leap, just do it, what are you waiting for?
But the reality is that, yeah, some of us are,
you know, in a situation where we can't take the
big leap. So, you know, always evaluate your emotions s
you know, consider the time frame in which the feelings

(14:27):
you have had have been occurring. You know, if it's
been less than ninety days, give it ninety days, see
if anything changes. You know, you should explore the trigger
for what you were feeling about your job. You know,
at your place of employment, there's no need for you
to join the great resignation. If you've just had a
bad week or even a bad month at work, you know,
look for you know, explore other options before you take

(14:51):
that step. The exploration of quitting a job you hate
should come into play only after you've done a bit
of self reflection. Also, you know, do a bit of
mock planning. If you're planning to quit your job without
other employment lined up, do a bit of mock planning,
which will until your budgeting what your day to day
will look like. You know, if you're going to spend

(15:12):
that time quote finding yourself, you know, what does that mean?
What does that look like for you and finding yourself?
Will you travel during that time or will you stay
put and just kind of work through a few things
independent of being in a workplace environment. You know, if
you are planning again to take that leap, you know,
make sure those around you understand what it is you're

(15:33):
planning to do, you know, so that they don't get
the wrong ideas and perhaps going to be supportive of
you in your efforts. If you do not have another
job lined up and you're starting your job hunt, prior
to leaving, you know, consider what it is you're hoping
to find in your new workplace. You know, if you're
happy with the job you do today you're just hoping
to do it in another location, then that part may

(15:56):
be pretty easy. You know, you just have to do
your research on the company or the organization in which
you're hoping to go work with or work for. But
if you're bored where you are today and you're hoping
to do something different, then you may want to definitely
do your research about what that different looks like and
how it is that organization potentially does different for you. So,

(16:19):
you know, these are just a few thoughts that I
have that I wanted to share with you today. Thank
you for taking time out today to listen to the
Mahogany Speaks to You dot Com podcast. Stay safe and
I'll catch you in the next podcast.
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