Do you hate your job?

Let’s say you hate your job. Like, with the heat of a thousand suns. It’s crushing your soul and you can barely drag yourself out of bed and get to work on time because the dread feels impossibly heavy.

But the thought of job searching fills you with as much anxiety as your current daily commute. You expect the exercise to be frustrating – everyone says they send in resume after resume and never hear anything in return. You’re not even sure what you’re worth, salary-wise, and hate the idea of having to negotiate a salary package. You just don’t know where to begin.

And you can’t even start job searching until you update your resume. It’s been ages since you last did it, and you know it needs a total overhaul. You can probably figure it out, and it’s been on your to-do list for months, but you can’t seem to find (make?) time to devote to this project.

So you throw your hands up in the air and think to yourself, maybe it’s easier to just suck it up and stay where you are. Money regularly appears in your bank account every other Friday. All your doctors are in-network with the employer-sponsored health insurance plan. And, the 401(k) matching contribution is helping you accumulate a tidy nest egg. And hey – you’re lucky to even *have* a job in the current climate, right?

As you wrestle with all of this, you hear your dad’s voice inside your head, asking, “Why would you quit a Perfectly Good Job? Is it really that bad?”

This, my friend, is no way to be. But you know that, right?

Here’s the deal: Yes, job searching is a process, and it takes time. Yes, it starts with updating your resume, and your LinkedIn profile. And sure, you can DIY, or you can hire a professional. But either way, it needs doing. And yes, the odds are, you will probably hear some no’s before you hear a yes.

It is unlikely that an offer for Your Perfect Job will just magically appear from the heavens and cure all your problems. It takes effort. But before the effort, you must make a positive choice to pursue new employment.

So: Don’t think of it as quitting. (Sorry, Dad). Instead, reframe it as freeing yourself from that which no longer serves you. Think of it as the natural end of a chapter in your life. Your association with your current employer has run its course. To advance to the next chapter, and all the possibilities it holds, you must turn the page. You must actively work on leaving the old so that you can experience the new.

Growth is a by-product of change. Stasis breeds stagnation.

If you don’t opt for something new, you are essentially choosing against your possible future to stay with your known present. But staying put may leave you with questions: What if I had applied for that job? What if they had hired me? What if I was finally able to leave this job that no longer feeds my soul?

You cannot know the answers to those questions unless you act. If you’ve been procrastinating, give some serious thought to whether it’s time for a change. The first step is a resume rewrite. Why not get started this week? Your future awaits.