Sunday nights feel heavy. In the morning, your feet slow down on the way to the station. "I want to quit," you mutter to yourself again and again.
And just as often, you hear another voice: "But isn't that just running away?"
Many people stay stuck between these two voices for months, sometimes years. In this article, instead of deciding which voice is right, I'll try to break down what "I want to quit" is made of.
"I want to quit" isn't one feeling
"I want to quit" looks like a single feeling. But in reality, several causes are usually tangled together.
A common framework for explaining how workers get worn down is the "Job Demands-Resources model" (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). It splits a job into two sides.
| Job demands | Job resources |
|---|---|
| Workload, time pressure, the burden of holding back emotions, friction in relationships, unclear roles | Autonomy to decide for yourself, support from your boss and colleagues, chances to grow, fair recognition, meaning in the work |
High demands aren't necessarily bad in themselves. Even if it's busy, people can get absorbed in work that gives them autonomy, support, and a sense of growth.
The problem is when demands exceed resources for a long time. Then people are slowly worn down. On the other hand, even when demands aren't that high, in a workplace with few resources, motivation itself dries up.
So the first question to ask when you want to quit isn't "Am I weak?" It's "What is there too much of, and what is missing?"
Three signs of burnout
When the wearing down goes far enough, it's called "burnout." In 2019, the WHO placed burnout in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) not as a disease but as an "occupational phenomenon," defined as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.
The researcher Christina Maslach and colleagues describe burnout in three dimensions (Maslach & Leiter, 2016):
- Exhaustion: rest doesn't take the tiredness away; just thinking about work drains you
- Cynicism: you stop caring about the work or the people you serve; you want distance
- Reduced efficacy: nothing you do seems to matter; you feel you're not useful
If all three are there, it's not a matter of grit. It's a sign that the combination of you and your environment isn't working.
If you can't sleep, can't eat, or can't stop crying, and it's been going on, please talk to a doctor or your company's occupational health physician before thinking about whether to quit. The decision can wait until you've recovered.
What can change inside the company, and what changes with a new job
Once you can see what there's too much of and what's missing, the next question is whether it can change within your current company.
| Reason for wanting to quit | Chance of change inside the company | Chance of change with a new job |
|---|---|---|
| Relationship with your boss | A transfer or new assignment can change it | It changes, but you can't choose your next boss |
| The work doesn't suit you | Transfer to another department, internal job postings | Changes a lot if you switch type of job |
| Long hours | If it's the department, a transfer may help | If it's the company or industry structure, a new job is more certain |
| Low pay | Only rises within the limits of the evaluation system | You can change the pay level of the industry or company |
| No sense of growth | Sometimes you can negotiate a bigger role | You can change the whole environment |
The point of this table is not to make it a choice between "quit" and "put up with it." In between there are options like transfers, negotiation, and changing your role. If you try those and nothing changes, the decision to quit becomes much clearer.
The question that separates "running away"
Running away isn't bad in itself. Getting away from a dangerous place is the right reaction for a living creature.
The problem is running away without knowing what you're running from. Change workplaces without breaking down the cause, and you're likely to hit the same problem at the next one. You thought it was your boss, but actually the work didn't suit you. That happens a lot.
On the other hand, if you can put into words what's being worn away and what you're moving toward, that isn't running away. It's moving.
Today's exercise
On paper or in a notes app, write down three things.
- What is your work wearing down most right now (time, feelings, relationships, meaning)?
- What "resources" are missing (autonomy, support, recognition, growth)?
- Is there a chance of getting them within your current company?
What's being worn down: daily overtime, and responding to chat messages late at night
Missing resourceAutonomy to decide how much work I take on
Available in the company?It's the whole department's culture, so hard without a transfer → check internal postings; if there are none, consider changing jobs
If the answer to the third is "yes," try moving within the company first. If it's "no," you can treat quitting as a judgment, not a source of guilt.
Wanting to quit isn't proof of weakness.
Knowing what's being worn away is what separates running away from moving on.
References
Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2007). The Job Demands-Resources model: State of the art. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 22(3), 309–328.
Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. P. (2016). Understanding the burnout experience: Recent research and its implications for psychiatry. World Psychiatry, 15(2), 103–111.
World Health Organization. (2019). Burn-out an “occupational phenomenon”: International Classification of Diseases.