4 Steps to Take When You Quit Your Job

Our careers are an enormous part of our lives. Not only do they give us income to support our families, but a good job gives purpose to our daily routines. A truly good job might also help provide you with medical insurance and retirement benefits.

When you are thinking about quitting your job, it’s vital to consider all the ways this change will affect your life. This ranges from finances and insurance all the way to whether you will be able to care for your children sufficiently with a new job. Child care or other babysitting needs to be arranged before moving on to your next position.

We’ll talk about all of the things above, as well as other personal and financial steps you need to take right after quitting your job. It’s both liberating and stressful to take this step in your life, and we’re here to help make this happen as smoothly as possible.

#1 – Decide What Job to Get Next

Whenever you voluntarily quit your job, you should have some sort of plan or idea for what you have in mind next. You don’t want to quit your job without anything on the back burner ready to fire up immediately afterward.

It’s okay to take a few weeks to get your head straight and relax. But this should only be to ease the transition to your next job. Start looking on sites like Indeed or LinkedIn while you are still working at your old job. Think about why you’re switching to a different job. Are you staying in the same field or making a career change altogether?

The second choice is going to require a lot more careful planning. You might need extra schooling or training. Or you may have to relocate your family if you’re making a drastic change.

Change What You Do at Your Current Job

Maybe you like your job, but you just want to work remotely instead of on location. Ask your employer whether they will let you do this. If your employer seems resistant, propose to them a hybrid model of working before you quit your current job.

There are plenty of ways to work from home and do different things with the company you’re currently working for. Maybe they need someone to create YouTube videos for their next marketing campaign. Perhaps you can write blog posts for their advertising affiliates.

Often when we get the feeling we want to quit our current job, it’s good to exhaust all of the options for changing things up at your company before walking away entirely.

#2 – How Are You Going to Care for Your Children?

When we are working to provide for our families, our children’s well-being is at the top of our list of priorities. This means every career move when you have kids has something to do with how they are going to be affected. This is a multifaceted issue, from having money for their essential needs to being home when they need your help with school.

If you have been working remotely and decide to switch to a job that’s in person, you have to figure out how you are going to fill this void at home. You won’t be there when kids get home from school, or when they don’t go in due to being sick. Arranging for child care or babysitting is a huge thing on your to-do list.

Decide what is right for you financially. If you have extended family members with free time, like grandparents, aunts, or uncles, ask them if they will help out with some of these things. Often family members are flattered to get involved if they have the opportunity.

If everyone in your life is busy, you need to figure out what is the best option for day care. Compare prices and make sure that the facility you choose is taking safety precautions due to the pandemic.

#3 – Will You Have Insurance at Your New Job?

Another thing connected to taking care of your kids is whether you will have insurance when you quit your job. Many people choose to stay employed with a certain company just because of good medical insurance, but there are ways to overcome losing this privilege.

See if you want to pay for COBRA (the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act). This allows you to stay on your former employee’s medical insurance for up to 18 months after you have quit your job. It can still cost quite a bit of money to stay on COBRA, though, so make sure you can afford it.

You may need to go on the government health insurance marketplace for medical insurance before you get your new job. These plans are usually limited by the amount of money you make per month. People with higher incomes receive less help from the federal government.

You should examine some of these insurance issues before you decide to quit your job. Like everything else we’ve talked about with quitting, you should not just do it on a whim. You need to carefully plan out how it will affect your life in the present and the future.

#4 – Figure out What Makes You Happy

You need to identify what your main emotions are behind quitting your current job. Do you feel unfulfilled? Are you not getting paid enough money, and you know you can find a more lucrative offer somewhere else?

People don’t usually consider whether they are happy when they are working. They are so concerned with getting up and repeating the same things for their job each day they forget to live a little bit.

Create your own thriving business if you believe you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur. If you want to help people in your community, perhaps become a teacher or a politician. If you want to start working more with your hands, go to a trade school and become a plumber.

Plan Carefully for Any Job Change

Do whatever it takes to succeed and have a happy life. This usually means bearing with the bad parts of your current job until you can make this big change. Consider the people you are affecting by quitting, and think about whether you will make their life better with a different job. As long as you plan carefully, you should be successful.

About the Author

Shawn Laib writes and researches for the insurance comparison site Clearsurance.com. He wants to help people figure out how to make effective career changes and decisions.

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