Here’s how to stay motivated at work even when you’re ready to quit.
You’re itching for a change, but deep down, you know that landing a better job won’t happen overnight. So, now you feel a bit stuck because your current job feels more like a chore than a career, and the to-do lists are longer than the patience you have left. Every day, you find yourself fighting the urge to say, “I quit,” but you know you need to stick it out a little longer until another job comes along.
If you just took a deep sigh because that describes how you feel each week, then it’s time to find a way to keep the motivation alive so that you can still thrive at work while you search for your next career move. Here are five suggestions to help you with that:
Find work interests that align with your career goals
Having to do work you don’t enjoy every day can feel like a painful, slow death. If that’s the main reason you’re on the hunt for a new job, then you might want to explore alternative activities you can do at work, while proactively seeking new opportunities elsewhere.
For instance, one of my clients, Sarah, loved marketing and planning events, but her current role didn’t allow her to plan events as much as she wanted. Not only did this make her unhappy, but it also made her worry that she was losing her event planning skills the longer she stayed in the position. To address this, she decided to search for event planning opportunities within her company. She found projects she could volunteer to be a part of while still maintaining her day-to-day responsibilities. Doing this made her to-do list more fulfilling and allowed her to add new accomplishments to her resume that aligned with her career goals.
Taking on additional projects alongside your current workload might not be feasible for everyone, but if you have the bandwidth to do it, then it can make your days more satisfying and help the time pass a bit faster.
Set healthy boundaries at work
If you find yourself bouncing between overworked, unhappy, and overwhelmed, then it might be time to set some healthy boundaries with yourself and your team. Even as you look for new opportunities elsewhere, exercising this skill now can help you prevent similar issues in your future role. If you’re not sure where to begin with setting healthy boundaries, take a look at your schedule, initiatives, and to-do lists and assess which items are draining your time and energy.
For instance, are you swapped with non-stop meetings? Are there tasks that could be delegated to another team member? Do you struggle with saying no, even when you know you don’t have the bandwidth? Taking a moment for an honest self-check can help you identify the baby steps you should take to establish healthy boundaries at work while searching for your next opportunity.
Schedule distraction-free time for your job search
When you’re ready for a new job, it’s tempting to squeeze your job search into every free moment of the day. While sipping your morning coffee, you might scroll through your emails to see if LinkedIn has sent any new job postings. As soon as you finish all of your tasks for the day, you might think of rewarding yourself by applying to dozens of jobs.
But squeezing your job search into the crevices of your day is not only unnecessary but also time-consuming and ineffective. Instead, examine your weekly schedule, including your work to-do lists and personal commitments, and create a job search schedule that aligns with your weekly agenda. Doing this will allow you to spend more quality time on your job search and applications. Plus, it will empower you to get more done and will give you the mental space to send out better applications, increasing your chances of getting more responses and interviews.
Connect with others more intentionally
When you’re ready to quit, the last thing you want to do is spend more time associating yourself with the company you’re ready to leave. But, while it might be tempting to say no to every happy hour, consider this: once you leave this company, you will likely never be in the same room with any of your colleagues again.
That might be a good reason to break out into a happy dance, but before you do, you should also consider if there are select people you’d like to get to know or learn from while you still have the chance. If the answer is a definite no, go forward with a clear conscience. However, if the answer is yes, you could make your work weeks more fulfilling by setting aside intentional time to meet with and connect with the few people you admire. This could be senior leaders you rarely get a chance to see or colleagues who work on different teams or on projects that spark your interests and curiosity.
Cultivate a hobby outside of work
If you’re not intentional, hating your job can quickly turn into another full-time job. You might find yourself spending most of your time mindlessly decompressing on the couch, complaining about how much you hate your job, or even actively avoiding friends and family so that you don’t have to talk about work and how much you hate it.
But, instead of giving your job even more energy than it already takes, consider pouring your energy into things that light you up. This could mean starting a new hobby you’ve been putting off or picking up an old hobby you stopped doing. Between working, job searching, and having some semblance of a personal life, picking up a hobby can feel like another thing you don’t have time for right now. But cultivating a hobby outside of work doesn’t have to be time-consuming either. You can start by setting aside time once a week, preferably during the workweek so that you have something to look forward to after work.
There’s a ton of advice out there on how to land a new job, but often not enough on how to remain motivated and successful in the one you want to quit. Luckily, even just implementing one or two of these suggestions can turn a draining workweek into a more bearable one as you search for your next career move.
Adunola Adeshola coaches high-achievers on how to take their careers to the next level and secure the positions they’ve been chasing. Grab her free guide.
