I earn lots, but hate my job. Should I stay for the sake of my bank account?
I am a high-income earner working a corporate job that consumes my life. The money is great. It pays for my mortgage and the lifestyle I love. But the work is stressful, the culture is intense, and my manager is difficult. It’s an industry-wide culture, so I don’t really see the opportunity to get a similar level of pay in a better environment elsewhere. There are days when I want to quit my job, get a cushy part-time job, and live a simpler life. But I also have financial goals I’m working on. I feel stuck between my golden handcuffs and the promise of financial freedom later and living my life now. Thoughts?
This isn’t actually about money or even your job; It’s about improving your decision-making process. Rather than trying to give you the pros and cons of each, I want to help you see how a small shift in perspective can change the possibilities before you. You’re not stuck with just two options; but you have a few basic assumptions that lead you to believe that you are.
Assumption 1: You don’t believe you can have it both ways. You seem to have a belief that you can only have one or the other: either a high-paying job that comes with a lot of stress, or a great low-paying lifestyle. As long as that is the belief you hold, you have only two options.
Are there people who have both? Yes. Is this possible for you? It’s up to you to decide.
I know this may sound like an empty motivational speech, but the reason I’m starting here is because you have to believe that something is possible for you for it to be an option.
You’ve probably had the experience that when you decide to buy a particular product (e.g. a TV, a car, a house), you suddenly start seeing all these opportunities that you never knew existed. You never knew that your best friend’s uncle owned a car dealership. You never knew you could trade in your old car and get several thousand dollars off the purchase price that way.
Many high achievers become excellent at sacrificing and overriding their internal experiences for external gain. This is unsustainable.
These opportunities have always existed; but you couldn’t see them. From where? Because you weren’t looking. Your mind was closed to them. You were focused on other things.
Now, if you decide that you can have both a great income and a great lifestyle, will it happen overnight? Not likely. But you may start to see more opportunities that you didn’t see before.
Most importantly, you’ll begin to feel the spark of possibility again, rather than feeling stuck in a lose-lose situation. You will no longer feel like you are facing a dead end, but will feel like you are opening yourself up to a world of endless possibilities. Isn’t this more exciting?
Assumption 2: You value money more than your life experience. You got to where you are today because you value financial success enough to make it a priority. But perhaps it was your life experience that you didn’t value enough (probably because, as I said before, you believed on some level that you had to sacrifice one for the other).
Your life experience is not determined by how luxurious your holidays are, how big your house is, or how cool your car is. It’s not determined by what you have, but by how you feel.
The problem is that many high achievers excel at sacrificing and overriding their internal experiences for external gain. This is unsustainable. There is usually a showdown at some point; burnout, midlife crisis, self-sabotage, or cognitive dissonance when you build a life that looks good on the outside but doesn’t feel as good as you think.
This sometimes comes as a shock to my clients, but if you truly want a life that feels good, you have to start valuing your life experience enough to make it a priority.
Once you decide that your life experience is (at least) as important as the professional and financial success you have achieved, you will begin to make different decisions.
Maybe you can muster up the courage to negotiate working from home one day a week. Maybe you’ll start a project on the side to enjoy the creative satisfaction you don’t get at work.
Whatever that first small step is, it starts with deciding that your life experience is just as important (if not more) than money. Then, even if you choose a less lucrative option in the short term, it stops feeling like a “step back” from the life you think you should want and starts feeling like a step forward toward the life you really want.
Paridhi Jain is the founder TalentedSmartIt is an app that helps adults learn to manage, save and invest money through financial education courses and classes.
- The advice given in this article is general in nature and is not intended to influence readers’ decisions about investments or financial products. They should always seek their own professional advice, taking into account their personal circumstances, before making any financial decisions.
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Paridhi Jain is the founder of financial education platform SkilledSmart, which has helped hundreds of adults become financially confident by teaching them practical strategies for managing, saving and investing their money.
