How you may feel when you quit your job

Just a lil’ PSA today:

Some of my clients, at some point, quit their jobs without something else lined up next. Often, this is a decision that is very intentionally chosen — for a long time, they’ve been craving extra time to rest, and dream about what’s next. 

When they were still working, they imagined this time of planned unemployment as delightful. 

The joyful mornings at coffee shops! The invigorating extra workouts! The extra hangouts with friends!

And then, when they’ve finally quit and have this longed-for extra time, they often find that while there are fun parts, there is also… anxiety. 

Sometimes… a lot of anxiety. 

Anxiety about figuring out what they want next.
Anxiety about whether they’ll ever get hired again. 
And just weird, mysterious, floating anxiety. 

This has happened to a handful of my clients in the past six months, and I have told them all the same thing: This is totally, profoundly normal. 

…

Here’s the thing: when you have more empty space + time in your life than you are accustomed to… stuff tends to come up. 

Stuff like…

Feelings. 
Thoughts. 
Body sensations (jitteriness, jumpiness, difficulty sitting still are common ones). 

This is true, across life. 

If you’ve had a super busy period at work, and suddenly the project ends, you might expect to feel amazing – and you might end up with a lot of “stuff” coming up. 

If you are a super busy parent and finally have some help + more free time — you might expect to be truly joyful, but spend at least some of that time with “stuff” coming up. 

Sometimes the “stuff” comes right away. You wake up on your first day of unemployment, filled with anxiety. Other times, there’s a honeymoon period of days or weeks, of pure joy. And then, it hits you like a ton of bricks. 

Often, my clients don’t typically feel quite so negative, in their general lives. So it can be extra-disorienting to have these negative thoughts or feelings or sensations. 

…

I have some theories about why this happens: I think most of us have more negative feelings than we are processing, on a day-to-day basis. And when we suddenly have more empty space, all of that unprocessed anxiety or fear or sadness or just existential sensation jumps in, to say: now that you have some empty space, can we play?

But I think even more important than why this happens is simply acknowledging that it does happen, and if it is happening, nothing is wrong. 

And here’s what I tell my clients, if it’s helpful to you, too: 

1. “Nothing is going wrong.”
   This is normal. This happens to almost everyone. Do not freak out. When there’s empty space, stuff just tends to come up.
   
   

2. And also: “You need to spend some of your new free time attending to this.”
   “This is annoying. And, some of your free time will need to be spent managing your anxiety (or fear or sadness), and taking it very seriously.” (This is a moment when I talk to my clients about concrete strategies that work for them, to manage thoughts or feelings.) 

…

Remember when I said this is a PSA? I meant it. 

I want you to remember: if you quit your job to rest + regroup (or otherwise find yourself with more free time than usual)… it may not feel 100% amazing. 

This is not to say you shouldn’t do it! I have done it, and enjoyed it, and have many clients who felt the same. 

It’s simply to say: if you feel not as amazing as you expected, don’t freak out. Take it seriously. If you do, then you might go back to enjoying the extra time just as much as you hoped  ☺

As always, I’m rooting for you. You’ve got this.

Katie




p.s. If you'd like some support in cultivating your own sustainable pace (both in identifying what it is + making it a freaking reality), I can't recommend life coaching enough.

If you'd like to work with me, you can learn about my work here.

---

Want to receive essays like this every Sunday morning? Sign up for my newsletter!

Why I was scared to quit my job, and what helped me

I’m afraid that I’ll become a homeless person, and that I won’t have health insurance.

I blurted out that sentence to my coach, trying to explain why I was so afraid to leave my job and take some time off. It felt kind of dumb after it came out of my mouth — it sounded so extreme.

But it did capture the real lot of fear I had: I was so burnt out at my job that my desire for rest seemed infinite. I was pretty sure if I listened to those desires, I’d never work again. And then I’d run out of money and have to live on the street and…

But my coach was looking at me calmly. In the most compassionate way in the world, she asked me: “Katie, is health insurance something that you want?”

“Yes,” I told her.

“Well then, I think you can trust that some deep part of you will take care of yourself. Just like you need rest and some space, you also need health insurance.”

She continued, in the friendliest way, “Don’t you think that when push comes to shove, you’ll do what you need to, in order to get what you need? Like, if you get low on money and you really have to, you’ll get a job that you don’t prefer, so you can make sure to get the health insurance you need?” 

“Don’t you think that you will take care of yourself when it comes down to it?”

I sat there, dumbfounded in my chair, soaking up how right she was.

…

To be clear, the point of this story isn’t “quit your job!”. That’s not always the right decision. (Far from it!) Rather, the point is this: You will take care of yourself.

So many of us have similar fears that we would blurt out if we were being truly honest:

If I let myself slow down at work, I’ll never accomplish anything, ever.
If I let myself turn down social events as much as I want to, I’ll never go out again, all my friends will abandon me, and I’ll be a complete loner.
If I let myself eat as many pumpkin cinnamon rolls as I really want, I’ll never stop eating until I gain 200 pounds.

I’ve heard all of these from my clients in the past, and I’ve certainly felt them myself!

But you know what? It’s typically not true that our desires are infinite.

Yes, we want a more balanced relationship with work, but we also want the pride of making an impact.
Yes, we want to rest at home alone, but we do also want to see our friends.
Yes, we want pumpkin cinnamon rolls, but we also want to feel good in our bodies.

So, yes, if we listen to our desires for a while, we may end up staying home or eating more cinnamon rolls than usual. But, eventually, we will reconnect with the other things we want, and find a balance that makes sense.

That certainly happened to me. I eventually left my job and took a few months to completely rest and look around. Then, as I started to feel more rested, making sure that my bank account was healthy became an increasingly higher priority. So I found part-time work, and later, full-time work.

With health insurance, of course.

So I’d like to ask you: What truthful desires are you afraid of because they seem “too big”?

I know you’ve got this.

Katie