Episode 27: Should I Quit My Job? A Working Mom's Dilemma
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Have you ever thought about quitting your job? Maybe you're tired of being pulled in a million directions and feel like it would just be easier if you weren't working. Or maybe your job is no longer fulfilling or even possible to do in the amount of time you have. But making a change as big as leaving your job is one worth taking your time with and really think about. In this episode, I'm sharing my favorite questions to ask yourself when you're at a crossroads in your career.
In this episode, you’ll learn…
01:32 The question many working moms ask themselves
05:33 Personal Story: When I considered quitting my job
12:56 Questions to ask before making a change
16:39 Everything is changeable
19:27 Getting support
links & resources mentioned in this episode:
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You are listening to the Life Coach for Working Moms podcast, the show where we are talking about what it actually takes to make life work as a working mom. I'm your host, Katelyn Denning, a full time working mom of three and a certified life and executive coach. I'm so glad you're here and I hope you enjoy this week's episode
Hey, welcome back to another episode of the podcast. It is so cold here this week. I don't know if you're experiencing some really cold temperatures. I see that sort of in different areas of the country or the world, wherever you are. So naturally it's freezing cold outside. We went to see a hockey game today.
But, I, of course, was looking at all of the players. If you know me, you know that I love romance. Novels and I have a soft spot for sports romance. Despite being a musician myself, give me a good hockey romance, a football romance, basically anything. If you need recommendations, please reach out to me.
I have so many for you. But anyway, we're at this hockey game. Which was super fun, low key, and I am imagining, all of the players out on the ice. Where is their love interest? Is she here in the arena? Can I find her? All of the ridiculous storylines that are in those novels, but hey, it's what I love, and I'm not embarrassed by it.
We all need a good escape every now and then so that's what I've been up to just trying to stay warm Wondering every day if school is going to be canceled for cold or for snow and yeah, just doing day by day as we do as working parents. So I want to talk to you today about one of those big crossroads decisions.
And I'm going to assume, that many of you have been at one point or another in this position. And I think about right now with so many illnesses, so many just inconsistent days and weeks that we have to actually work and doing this juggle when they're either school closures or we've got sick kids or, you know, all of the things happening, wondering if things would just be easier, if you could quit, if you just didn't work, how much less stressed would you be?
You would have nothing that you needed to do if school was closed. You would have nothing that you needed to, be responsible for if your kid ends up needing to stay homesick. And so, I think this thought probably crosses a lot of our minds. Maybe I should just quit. I know that I have thought this after a particularly tough or exhausting week, regardless of whether the kids have been home or at their normal child care places, but But you know, you think about those weeks where projects are piling up at work, or you feel like you're dropping the ball at home, you're relying on takeout and freezer meals, and there just doesn't seem to be an end in sight to the juggle, and you think that something has to give.
Or maybe it's that your work is no longer fulfilling and your days just feel long and soul sucking, why stay in a job like that? Or maybe instead of you thinking about leaving, it's actually your colleagues who have resigned or left or workforce reductions or restructuring and it's left you with more work than you could possibly do in a 60 hour work week, let alone 40 hours that you're actually paid for.
And so I think it's a really normal thought to entertain, to think about quitting or making some big change. It's actually an easy question to ask. It makes so much sense because it is easier to fantasize about quitting or changing jobs than it is to sit with. The anger, the frustration, the overwhelm, or the apathy that comes from feeling like you are missing out on living your life,
because when you feel like you're being pulled between work and parenting, when you are feeling apathetic, or you are being overworked, it impacts Everything else. It impacts your sleep, your health, your relationships, your home, just the life admin that has to happen.
And I will be very honest and say that I, Actually considered, seriously considered leaving the workforce completely, two times. Me, the life coach for working moms who feels very passionate and compelled to support women, to be able to raise their families, Enjoy their lives and create meaningful work in the world because I believe that we need more women and more mothers out here making changes.
I thought about leaving twice. So how did I decide whether to stay or whether to quit? That is a good story. It's a good story, but first I want to tell you a story about coloring. I know, hang with me, because it will make so much more sense when I get to how it was that I made that incredibly challenging decision about quitting or staying.
So tell me if this was you as a kid, but I was, I mean, I was, practically a professional when it came to coloring. I took my job very seriously. I paid so much attention to detail. I never strayed outside the lines and I, when coloring with crayon in particular, I would finish each of my pieces with a tissue where I would like buff the color to give it just that special shine.
My I guess I, we called her our babysitter growing up, but she was a nanny. She watched my sister and I all day, every day. My mom was a teacher and she returned to work after she had both of us. She taught me the tissue trick. So if you have any kids coloring with crayon, just take a little tissue and you can buff it out to a perfect shine.
And I remember. Oh, I'm not sure how old I was. I had to be pretty young. I want to guess like first or second grade. , but I submitted a piece for a coloring competition and I won first place. And I received as my prize a gift card to like a local department store.
It's no longer in existence today, but You know, kind of the 90s version or late 80s version of Target. And I knew exactly what I wanted to use that gift card for as soon as I got it. I knew, and I told my parents right away. But in typical fashion, For I think many parents, but especially my parents, they told me I needed to wait.
They told me I needed to wait. They wanted me to wait one week. And if at the end of that week, I still wanted that turtle tot's turtle, it was a little stuffed turtle, that It's shell, you could like zip on and off, and it had little handles so you could almost carry the turtle like a purse. But if that was what I really wanted at the end of the week, then they would take me to use my gift card and get my Turtletots turtle.
Of course, one week felt like a lifetime to me. But their justification was that they wanted to be sure that this particular toy was what I really wanted. Now, maybe they secretly thought that the turtle was silly and they hoped that I might change my mind. I have actually never asked them. I'm not sure I want to know the answer to that.
But one thing that they did know, was that the interests of young children change day to day, hour to hour, my kids will love peanut butter for breakfast, but hate it by the time it's lunch. So, not only were they helping to ensure I would end up with a a toy that I really wanted, they were also teaching me patience and the concept of delayed gratification.
Uh, spoiler alert, I did get the turtle. I loved that turtle for quite some time. So fast forward 30 some years and I found myself in another position to practice. What I have been taught as a child. So the first experience when I truly considered leaving, quitting my job and leaving was when my oldest was, I think it was probably about six months old.
I traveled a lot in that role and the role that I had when my second child was born. And I had to take a business trip that would take me away from home for a couple of nights. Now. I know so many of you travel for work regularly. I have a client who does some really intense travel with a young, young child at home.
And I know you know that it's hard, that it's challenging, and that you do it. Right. You just do it. So two nights, definitely not a long trip in the grand scheme of things, but for some reason, this particular trip felt like an eternity. And I think for me, there were a lot of things going on at this time.
I was a couple of months on medication for postpartum depression and finally starting to feel like myself, finally starting to feel connected to my son in a way that I didn't for so many of those early months. I think Henry was probably in a really cute phase, right? Six months old, it's really cute, and I knew that I would return from that trip to a mountain of emails at work, to house projects that had fallen behind, you know, no fault to my husband, who was just holding down the fort, you know, or would be holding down the fort and stories, of all of the fun that they would have in my absence.
And I was terrified. I was tired, just thinking about getting caught up afterward. I was sad about missing out on time with my family. And I was angry that I was in a job that required me to travel. So I did, what so many of us do. And I immediately jumped to thinking about quitting my job. I thought if I didn't have to work, I wouldn't have to travel.
And therefore I wouldn't have to feel this way again. So I thought about our budget and what it would take to live on a single income. I thought about breaking the news to my manager and to my clients. I even went so far as to say it out loud to my husband, which I remember feeling really terrified to acknowledge this out loud.
And he calmly responded, is that what you really want? And I think now about my parents, wait one week and be sure that that's really what you want. If it was really what I wanted, he said, then I should take some time to really think about it, to think about what my days would actually look like to think about my career.
Frankly, I was really proud of and I worked really hard to be where I was. To think about not just the short term but also any long term implications. And if at the end of my thinking I still felt as strongly about the idea as I did right then in that moment of pure frustration, then the two of us would start to figure out how to make it happen.
But give it some time, he said. So I was like, okay, Mr. Life Coach, I felt like that kid pining for my turtle all over again.
But that question served me so well in that season, at that crossroads, that I have used it again and again in coaching my clients who are grappling with similar questions and similar decisions.
When you think about what it is that you want, do you want what's on the other side of the change? Or do you just want change? So perhaps on the other side of the change is a new job. Perhaps it is an alternate schedule or to be at home, to be the primary parent. can you envision what that would look like and is that what you want?
Or do you want to not feel the way that you do now? Do you just want to not feel so angry, so overwhelmed, so tired, so stressed, so apathetic or frustrated? If it's the former, what you want is the thing that's on the other side of the change. Then you know what you need to do. You start gathering information.
You analyze your budget, you search for new opportunities, you start having conversations, you take action. But if it's the latter, and you're really just tired of feeling the way that you feel, you may want to explore some of these additional questions. So what is it that you do want? Assuming you know that what you have right now is what you don't want, what is it that you do want?
Paint a picture. Think about that ideal scenario. What does that look like? Then ask yourself if you could get what you want without a professional change. Are those things possible if you stay where you are? Maybe not. Maybe they're not possible and everything hinges on a professional change. But I have definitely coached clients through scenarios where you It does not require a professional change to change the way that you feel.
Then think about what are the costs of a change and also what are the costs of staying the same. Staying the same in how you feel, staying the same with your schedule, staying the same in your job.
Then consider this. Is it possible that you could make a change and still feel the same way that you do now? That's not a scenario that many of us like to entertain or to think could be the way it is, but just think about that. Is that possible? That doesn't mean you don't make the change, but you make the change with your eyes wide open.
And then lastly, have you explored all possible solutions? There are so many creative ways to think about change. The first and easiest one is to always think about quitting or to think about getting a new job. But I have watched time and again and done this for myself as well, where maybe what I want is the tenure and the employer where I don't have to start over, where I have a reputation, where there is trust in me and my ability to deliver amazing results.
I just need a different schedule. I just need a slightly different role. I just need a different team. I just need a different client base. Insert your industry here. There are other options and can you think of what those might be?
If there is one thing that I have learned since becoming a mom it's that everything changes all of the time. Kids change, jobs change, schedules, our feelings change. And I've also learned that I can figure most things out when they do change. I am very capable, and so are you, your mom. You are so capable.
So, whether you decide to continue working, to change jobs, to stay home, to put your career on pause or go part time, you will figure it out if it's what you want. I guess all of this is to say when you are asking those questions about whether or not you should stay or whether you should quit, if things would be easier if you didn't work.
Give it some thought. Really explore these questions and what it is that you want. Sleep on it. Plan it out. Get very visual in imagining what your days would look like if you were to make this change. And say it out loud. Hearing myself say to my husband, I think I want to quit my job was a very different feeling than just entertaining that thought in my own head.
Say it out loud to those you trust. How does it feel? What do you notice when you say it out loud? And mostly trust yourself. As I remind all of my clients, everything is changeable. Everything is changeable. Yes, there might be more hoops you have to jump through if you If you did leave your job and realize that's not actually what you wanted, or you took a new job that's not quite what you envisioned it would be, there will be hoops to jump through for sure.
But it is changeable. And to this day, in both of those situations where I seriously considered quitting and leaving, I stayed. The first one, Is when I discovered coaching and changed my own perspective and what I was able to control to have a completely different experience of how I was feeling about my working mom life.
And then the second one, I explored other possibilities and I landed on a scenario that was so much better for me, for my skillset, for my quality of life, for my work life balance. And I would not have gotten there if I hadn't challenged myself to think about what it was that I truly wanted.
If you are at a crossroads, if you feel like something has to give, that is the perfect time to get the support of a coach. I've supported clients who have decided to pause their careers for a while. Clients who have decided to re enter the workforce after a break. Clients who've changed jobs and careers.
And many clients who have figured out how to make their current jobs work for them to be less overwhelmed and stressed from managing their roles and responsibilities alongside parenting. And they've decided to stay, but to operate in a very different way. If that is you, I would encourage you to fill out an application on my website as your next step.
Don't stay stuck. Take action and let this be your small action step. If I think that you would be a good fit for coaching, I'll reach out so we can schedule a time to talk. We'll come up with a three part plan for what your next steps are going to be. And if you decide that coaching is a part of that plan, great.
I have openings and I would love to support you through this decision. And if not, you'll know exactly what you need to start moving forward on your own. You can find the application on my website at the mother nurture. com forward slash application. And as always, you can find everything that I've mentioned here on the podcast over in my show notes, which are also on my website at the mother nurtured.
com forward slash podcast. All right. I hope this was helpful today. I will talk with you in the next episode next week. And until then take care, stay warm, be well.
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