10 Ideas if You’re Scared To Leave A Comfortable Job

1.) Small Steps

You’ve already taken the first step by admitting you want to leave your “comfortable job”. This is powerful. Pat yourself on the back. Most people don’t even get this far, they stick their head in the sand and pretend everything is okay (even though deep down they feel it’s not). Admitting you want to leave your job and find work that is in line with what you want in life is amazing.

When you’re ready, start taking more small steps with the goal of leaving your comfortable job. These steps are different for everybody. You may be the type of person who’s happy to jump and if that’s the case, great! If you trust in the universe, it looks after you.

If you’re not that kind of person, start taking small steps in the right direction. If you take a step everyday, imagine where you could be in a year from now.

Here are some potential steps:

• Reasearch other careers / businesses/ jobs
• Write down or create a vision board of your ideal job / career / business / life.
• Create a financial back up plan for when you leave your job
• Look for / apply for other jobs you may like
• Talk to other people who have left comfortable jobs and how they made the transisiton
• Find positive people who will support you on your journey
• Read inspirational books and blogs from people who have left comfortable lives / jobs

2) Your Job is Not Who You Are

When you’ve done a job for a long time, it seems like your job is part of your identity. This can make it hard to leave especially when it’s been what you do, what has given you self worth and how you have earned your income for such a long time.

If this is the case for you, it’s a good idea to remind yourself “Your Job is Not Who You Are!”

You are something much bigger than your job

It can be easy to forget this when you are so comfortable.

Leaving a job is an amazing opportunity to grow and reinvent yourself.

If you think your job is part of who you are, you are more likely to stay put and not explore what else is out there for you.

3.) Abundance Is A Higher Value Than Money

Many people are scared to leave their jobs because they risk of earning less money.

But when we make money are highest value, we make very different decisions than when we take money out of the equation.

Many people earn lots of money in jobs where they work 40 hours a week. But what is the trade off for this?

They’re often in jobs they don’t like. They aren’t following their passions. Often they are working more hours than they want to. They aren’t enjoying much of their week.

Abundance comes in many other forms than money.

Having time and energy to make mistakes is a form of abundance. How many people trade the security of having a comfortable job with the freedom to make a mistake and try something new?

If you’re reading this, you’re living in a society where you can choose to leave your job. You may tell me about your mortgage or other costs but for if you’re honest with yourself you can still leave your job and manage those costs. It could be that you decide to downsize, cycle instead of use a car, spend less money on coffees, clothes or dinners out for a while. Having these choices is a form of abundance. Or it may be that you can earn more money in a new job, career or business. It is open to you if you’re open to it.

4.) Create a plan

A practical step you can take is to create a plan for leaving your comfortable job. It’s great if you do this with timescales. Perhaps you could have a 3 or a 6 month plan.

Your plan will vary depending on what you want to do next. If you plan to get another job, you may plan to apply for 10 other jobs in one or two weeks. If your plan is to start your own business, perhaps you might set up a website and start a side hustle while your still in employment.

Having a plan help keeps you focused and keeps you going in your job as you know you have an exit strategy.

5.) Accept Your Scared… and That’s Okay

Being scared isn’t a bad thing. It’s completely normal to feel this way. Most people are going to feel fear when they think about or leave a comfortable job.

One of my favorite people at the moment is Kyle Cease. As a side note is work is really worth checking out – start with his Youtube channel.

One of the things he teaches is that when you have a negative thought or feeling, follow it with “And I love that”.

For example, perhaps you have scary thoughts such as:

I am worried that if I leave my job I will not have enough money and will go broke… Follow this kind of statements with “and I love that”. It will help you change your perspective on the thought you are having.

I can hear you ask, why would I love it if I’m broke.

Imagine that you are broke (not that this is likely to happen in any way!) What would that give you?

Going broke would mean that there is nothing to lose, so you can start a new business or job without having to worry about losing anything else. It teaches you how to live with less. You could learn that material possessions are over-rated. You can start to see the beauty in the little things in life, and value the things that truly matter.  You will learn you can survive going broke, which lessens the fear of it happening again. Nobody wants to go broke, but if the worst were to happen there is great opportunity in having no money too.

Whenever a fear arises, follow it with “And I love that”. It will immediately change your perspective and you will not find it as scary.

6.) Write a List of the Pros of Leaving

It’s easy to measure what you’ll lose when you leave a comfortable job, but it’s not as easy to measure what you’ll gain. Our minds have a tendency to focus on negative things that may occur when leaving a job. However, it is just as likely that lots of positive things will happen.

There are so many positive things that will arise out of leaving a comfortable job. Some will be impossible to see the at the moment or may not even have occurred to you. Write a list of all the positive things you could gain when leaving your comfortable job. This list can help you see different outcomes. It may also give you that extra incentive you need to leave.

Here is an example list I’ve wrote when I leaving one of my jobs:

• More opportunities for growth
• Will push me to learn new skills
• More security as even though I’m leaving a comfortable job, I’ll develop more trust in myself to manage the situation whatever happens.
• More fulfilling work
• Being able to do work that makes a big difference to other people
• Meeting and connecting with new people
• Opportunities for a bigger salary / earn more money in different ways

7.) It’s Scarier To Stay

After listing all the possible pros, it occurred to me it’s scarier to stay in a comfortable job forever.

Imagine missing out on all the great things that could happen in your life because you stayed where you were.

The other scary thing is living with regret. It may not work out how you imagined when leaving your job, however it is surely worse to live with the regret of never making the move.

8.) Contemplate Death

It may seem a little drastic, but one day you’re going to die.

Try the practice of contemplating death more regularly. Make it a practice to remind yourself that you’re going to die in the morning when you’re due to go to work and at times throughout the day. Try contemplating death whenever you’re scared. That fear won’t exist on the day you’re going to die, so why worry about them now. We only have one shot at life and it goes by quickly. Just contemplating death can help us make some very different decisions. It helps to stop sweating the small stuff.

Life is a journey and you want to experience as much of it as possible.

9.) The Fear Isn’t Outside Us

Why is it that some people can easily quit a comfortable job and move onto other things, whereas others of us get stuck?

The reason is that these people approach the fear differently.

Some of these people won’t feel fear. The fear of staying in a job which quashes their creativity or growth is more terrifying than staying.

Other people will feel fear but push themselves to go through.

And the rest of us may feel the fear and allow it to stop us from moving on.

Why do people act so differently in the same situation?

The reason is that the fear isn’t something that is outside us. It is created inside us. This is why people feel fear on different levels and some people not at all. Some people just haven’t created the fear inside themselves whereas other people have ramped it up tenfold.

The good news is if the fear is inside us, we are creating it. We are creating it with our minds. We use behaviour patterns we created to protect ourselves in the past to stop ourselves moving forward in the present.

Knowing this we can use strategies to deal with the fear. The first is to accept that the fear is there. Don’t try to get rid of it. Sit with it. Close your eyes. Feel it. Welcome it. Accept it.  Sometimes this is enough for it to leave us.

Sometimes loving the fear is what we need to do. Know that like all negative emotions, fear can be a gift. It can teach us a lot about ourselves. From fear we can learn about our behaviour patterns and become aware of why we are acting in a certain way. This can help us grow in other areas of our lives too.

Loving the fear and accepting it sometimes helps it leave. But if it doesn’t go, continue loving it. It will teach you something. Having fear there does not have to stop you from moving forward. You can love the fear and still act. Changing perspective and seeing fear as a green light to go rather than a red light to stop can also be helpful.

We can also feel fear inside our body without attaching thoughts to it. Doing this can also help us move forward. Next time you feel anxiety and fear, just focus on the feeling inside and if thoughts come up don’t link the feeling with the thought. When fear is linked with thoughts it actually magnifies the fear and makes us panic. 

10. The Fear Is Not You

You may feel fear of leaving a comfortable job from inside you, but it’s important to know, that any fear you feel is not you.

Fear is separate to you. If you think that the fear is part of you, it will always be with you because that is what you believe. When we say “I’m scared” we are defining ourselves as fear. So it’s important to say “I feel scared” instead and know that the fear is not you.

Sometimes it helps to give the fear it’s own name. Gary is my favorite name for fear. When fear is there, you can say hi Gary, glad you’re here to teach me something new again. Welcome Gary and love him. Try it, it works!

You May Also Like…