Five signs you need a change of direction

Being tired of your job is normal. Everyone has weeks when they want to drop it all. But sometimes the feeling doesn’t go away after a holiday, and the question stops being “should I quit?” and becomes “where am I going?”. Here are five signs I often see in clients who really need a change of direction.

1. You’re good at it, but don’t want to get better

You still deliver and you still get praised. But when you picture getting better at this exact job over the next five years, you feel tired rather than excited.

2. Time off is no longer enough

A long break restores you, but by the first Monday morning back the heaviness is exactly where you left it.

3. You envy one particular kind of work

Not the salary or the title, but the way someone else spends their day. That is often a clue worth following.

4. You talk about your work in the past tense

“Back then I loved…”, “I used to…”. When everything you like most about your work lies in the past, take note.

5. You’ve been thinking about it for over a year

If a question has followed you for more than a year without an answer, it probably needs to be asked differently, with more structure.

If you recognise yourself in some of these

Don’t hand in your notice yet. Start with small experiments: talk to people doing the work you’re curious about, try a short project, work out how many months of savings you need. The best changes of direction are usually a series of small steps, not one leap.

A sample article.