Why You Should Quit Your Toxic Job

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” — Confucius

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I called my boss for a meeting on a Monday morning in one of the client meeting rooms at the Bank. I had a white envelope in my hand, enclosed was my resignation letter I had prepared the night before. “So, what’s this about? Can we make it quick, we have a sales meeting in 30 minutes”, my boss said.

I slowly pushed the envelope in front of him, and before he could open it, I blurted it out, “I quit!” “Oh, and by the way, I’m not coming to the sales meeting.” I immediately felt a sense of relief, euphoria, I felt free.

You see, I had been in a dead-end job for almost 3 years at the bank writing commercial loans. I hated every minute of it, but it kept the lights on. I was a young aspiring banker and had just made the leap from the mortgages department to the ‘big boys’ in the fancy suits in corporate banking.

Even though most of my colleagues were great people, I had an egotistical, narcissistic boss who made my working life miserable. I worked very long hours, rarely taking lunch breaks. My boss and I were the last ones to leave the office every night and he always made some snide comments whenever I tried to leave work before him.

I was always working on some big corporate deal over the weekends or cold calling prospects to keep the sales pipeline red hot. The stress and toxic working relationship with my boss eventually took its toll and I developed shingles. My relationships with my family and friends suffered because I rarely saw them. Girlfriend? she got tired of all the excuses for not hanging out and left me. I later found out she was with some other guy while I was working late in the office on the weekends, it’s okay, I didn’t blame her at all.

Quitting that Job was the best thing I ever did for myself. I wish had done it sooner, but I guess was too scared of the unknown. If you’re stuck in a toxic job, here are some good reasons why you should quit.

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Life is too short, you’re going to regret it

If you need just one reason to convince yourself to say bye to your toxic job is thinking about your death. You’re going to die one day. That’s the brutal truth. You could drop dead today, or in 20 years. Once you start thinking about the end of your life, you’ll start having a low threshold for BS.

When you’re on your deathbed, you’re going to regret all that time you spent doing a job you hated. A toxic job robs you of your right to enjoy a quality life.

You suddenly lose the desire and strength to go out there and experience life in its abundance, because you’re always inside your head worrying about your crappy job.

I have some friends who are nurses in palliative care, do you know what they tell me about the last days or hours before someone dies? The majority of people talk about the things they weren’t able to do in their lifetime, they have lots of regrets. They wished they had crossed off more things on their bucket list but instead, they were too busy working rather than living.

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It’s destroying your health

A toxic job will make you physically and emotionally sick. The stress will cut several years off your life. According to one study by the Finnish Institute of Health and Welfare, a 30-year-old male’s life expectancy can be reduced by almost 3 years due to heavy stress. As you get older, your body is less resistant to stress, so your life span shortens even more.

Job stress has been linked to emotional problems such as depression, anxiety, and panic attacks. According to several studies including research conducted by Psychology Today, work stress raises the risk of alcohol, drug and eating disorders all of which hurt your health

There’s also evidence that stress leads to Insomnia, low sex drive, high blood pressure, early onset of diabetes — I could keep going, the bottom line is a toxic job affects your mental, physical and physiological health. It will literally kill you slowly, so, the sooner you jump ship, the less damage you’ll do to your health.

The company will carry on without you, It’s not going to fall apart because you’re not there, even if you’re the CEO, you’re just a cog in the wheel of the big corporate machine.

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It’s killing your relationships

Work-related stress often spills into our personal lives in so many different ways, affecting the quality of our relationships with family and friends. A demanding job will lead you to become withdrawn, distracted and less caring towards people.

A recent study published in the Journal of Happiness Studies looked at how a failure to detach from work negatively affects the quality of a couple’s relationship — it’s exhausting, reduces affectionate behaviours towards a partner and can also affect how a partner views the relationship. The strain on the relationship can ultimately lead to divorce.

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There’s always a better Job

Are you ready for a depressing statistic? Here it is: The average worker spends 90,000 hours throughout their lifetime at work. That’s about one-third of your waking adult life spent working.

Here’s another statistic: about 80% of US workers are outright unhappy with their jobs. I want you to think about that: four out of every five people get up every morning to go to a job they hate and they just keep doing it, day in and day out.

Given that we spend so much of our waking lives working, we should strive to find a career or job that, at the very least, doesn’t make us dejected most of the time. You might think you’re stuck, but you’re not. You can always find another more bearable job. The very fact that you got your job in the first place, means you can get another one.

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Final Thoughts

You should never quit your job without a clear plan in place. I know not everyone can just drop everything and go find another job today, especially in the current environment. Before you quit, make sure another job is lined up with a signed contract and a set start date.

If you’re in a toxic job, think about the day you die, your health, your relationships and always remember that there’s something better out there even if you haven’t found it yet.

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This post was previously published on Change Becomes You and is republished here with permission from the author.
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