Should you quit your job? This question a lot of people think. And I thought of it too about 7 years ago before I finally quit.
Now, the sad reality is that most people live lives of quiet desperation. Spending a lot of their days going to work driving in a glass cage. Driving back. Sitting on their couch watching TV decompressing from the day. Not liking their boss. Not liking their job. The sad fact is for most people the highlight of their day is coming home and watching their favorite show or playing their video game or something along those lines.
Now, it doesn't need to be that way. And if you look at your situation objectively. Look it and just assess where you are without the emotional component of it. Without the pity, without the blame, without the regret. And look where you actually are and figure out where you want to be. Figure out your goals. And make a plan. Everything gets a lot easier when you have a plan to work towards it.
And if you feel trapped which I felt in my job and you just remember what your plan is, remember your goals. Figure out your obstacles, you can overcome them. If you feel trapped just focus on what your plan is and work towards it even if it's just like feel like shipping away at the Berlin Wall for a second. You keep doing it day by day.
All of us have time each day. I remember when I was working a job. I felt utterly just trapped and contained. I was working for a boss. I hate it. I was working at a ad agency. I was unappreciated. I had a nice salary. I was making $6,000 per month. And at the time when I was 22 or 23 that was a good amount of money to me even living in LA. But I still felt trapped by my situation. I felt... I told myself I was too young to go higher in the world or in my company. I thought I was too inexperienced. I told myself I wasn't smart enough to make more money. Even I wanted it.
Now I attacked my spare time every single day like a beast. Every single second that I could spend working on my business, I attacked it with tenacity. I made sure that social media and that events and that friends and family obligations that all of your friends and family and associates and co-workers put on me would not hold me back. And I made sure I was always supremely focused with a tenacious wolf-like hunger to use every spare second of my time to move myself towards what I believe my ultimate destiny was.
Now, the safe path leads to desperation. The safe path just waiting to get an opportunity or jumping around whatever the safe path is, it leads to a life of quiet desperation. You have to take risks. You have to jump off the edge at some point. You have to make a decision of where do you want to be.
Now, could be a job. It could be a relationship. It could be a friend. But whatever that hard decision is, nobody's going to make it for you. And if you are suffering quietly, the only person you have to blame is looking at you in the mirror. The only person that is responsible for where you are. It's not your spouse, it's not your husband. It's not your mother, it's not your father. It's not your child, it's not your toddler. It's not your boss. The only person you have to blame is yourself. And only when you take responsibility for your own failure or success then you can change it.
Now, a lot of us trap ourselves with what I call golden handcuffs. We just take whatever money we're earning and we spend it. We take whatever our income is. And we spend up to whatever we can afford. And that's wrong. You know, that's going to leave you with handcuffs. That's going to leave you trapped. You're making $5,000 a month? You spend $5,000 a month. You make $6,000 a month, you spend $6,000 a month. And I got caught it this trap in my mid 20s.
Lastly, dig deep inside of yourself. Dig deep and ask yourself where do you really want to go in life. What do you want to become. Is your job serving you to get there. And if isn't, make a plan and follow through. Maybe that means lowering your quality of living for period and saving up money so you can make the leap. Maybe it means just going in and giving your 30-day notice. Maybe it means cutting off relationship with a friend or a family member or a significant other. Whatever that is, make a decision. The only person to make the hardest decisions is going to be you.