I’m not a career-advice expert. I’m a person who has come to the end of a long, tedious, annoying road that’s leading nowhere fast. I no longer feel happy at work. I no longer feel challenged at work. In fact, it wouldn’t be wrong to say I actually quite dislike the job I do. The only reason I am still doing it is that I get to work from home for part of the week.

If you are feeling any of these things, firstly, you are not alone and you could be ready to move on. But what if you’re not sure about whether or not you should be looking to greener pastures? That’s a good question. Thankfully, there are tell-tale signs to watch out for so you can easily decide if changing careers is right for you. Those signs are;

1. You dread going to work.
2. You spend a lot of your time thinking about things other than your job when you’re at work
3. You’re too easily distracted when you should be concentrating on your tasks
4. You’re watching the clock every day, and you’re packing up your desk way before it’s time to go
5. You find yourself browsing career websites at work, and you don’t care who sees you
6. You tend to get “Monday-itis” a lot
7. The work you do is repetitive and doesn’t challenge you
8. You have other knowledge and skills that are never used
9. You’re experiencing sleep disruption, mood swings and you feel stressed a lot more often
10. You’ve faced redundancy, or the threat of redundancy or restructuring is a possibility

While I haven’t experienced all of these symptoms, I have experienced most of them at various stages of my working life. And when the worst happened, do you know what I did? I left the job I was in without even organising another one to go to – it was just that bad. My partner could tell I was suffering, and he said I should leave and take my time finding another job. It wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but it was the best thing to do for my mental health.

Sometimes you need to step outside yourself. You need to get the opinion and support of other people that are close to you. Take it from me, you do not want to let that feeling of dread overwhelm you. It becomes challenging to manage once you are already at breaking point. Which is why I am writing a lot more about these things as a way of healing and coping. And I’m working hard on following my own path as much as possible and hopefully, helping others as I go.