114 I Can't Keep Doing This: Why Quitting Feels Like the Only Way to Feel Better

When everything feels like too much, quitting can seem like the only path to relief. Learn the powerful question to ask before making a major career decision from overwhelm, guilt, or fear.

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Why Quitting Feels Like the Only Way to Feel Better

[00:06] My friends, I’m so glad you’re here. This is Episode 114, and I’m Liz Jolley. Today, I want to talk about a thought I hear over and over again from the high-achieving women I work with. Honestly, it’s a thought I’ve had myself at different points in my life.

[00:26] It’s simply this: “I can’t keep doing this.” For so many women, this thought appears even though they genuinely love their careers and enjoy spending time with their families.

When Everything Feels Like Too Much

[00:37] It feels like there is simply too much on your plate—too many meetings, too many emails, and too many decisions to make every single day, including seemingly simple ones like: What’s for dinner?

[00:48] People need something from you all the time. There are too many practices, too much time spent playing Uber Mom, too many appointments to book and attend, too many lunches to pack, breakfasts to make, grocery-store trips to take, and expectations to meet.

[01:08] It feels like there are dozens of tabs open in your brain at the same time—which, honestly, is a lot like my computer most of the time.

[01:14] No matter how hard we work, we never feel caught up. Our plate seems so full that if one more thing is added, the whole thing will come tumbling down.

[01:25] Many of us leave work thinking about everything waiting for us at home. Our brains race: What did I forget? Then we get home and start thinking about work.

[01:36] You wonder whether you need to answer that email right now—even though it’s dinnertime and you’re cooking. You suddenly remember something you forgot to respond to. You mentally plan tomorrow while helping with homework.

[01:49] You lie in bed thinking about the meeting you have first thing in the morning. Are you prepared for the slides or the argument you need to make? Did you remember to make sure your daughter’s homework was in her backpack?

[02:02] After we live this way for long enough, our brains look around and try to identify the problem because we desperately crave relief.

Why Quitting Feels Like the Answer

[02:12] We look around and think: Maybe the problem is my job. Maybe it’s this company that doesn’t appreciate women or accommodate moms. Maybe it’s my boss. They don’t understand. They’ve never had kids. They don’t get it. Maybe I need a different schedule.

[02:32] Maybe we think our spouse needs to help more and take on more responsibility. Some of us even think we should simply quit. Everything feels so heavy, and we believe changing our circumstances is the answer.

[02:48] That makes perfect sense. If the job is the problem, quitting should solve the problem—and then we should feel better.

[02:58] If the problem is how much I have on my plate, taking one major thing off my plate should make me feel better, too.

[03:06] But here is something I’ve learned in my own life and through coaching many women at these exact crossroads and decision points:

[03:18] Sometimes we are trying to solve the right pain with the wrong solution.

[03:23] That’s what I want to explore with you today. Before you make a big decision—such as whether you should quit your job—I believe there is an even more important question to ask: What do I believe quitting my job will finally allow me to feel?

The Weight of What We Think We Should Do

[03:40] When I had my first baby, I never stopped to ask myself whether I wanted to quit working. I simply assumed that was what you did as a married woman: You quit your job. I unconsciously thought, “I should just quit. That’s what women do.”

[04:00] I had absorbed this idea through socialization: If your spouse had a good job and you could make it work financially, that was a gift—and good moms stayed home with their children. I never questioned that thought. I never asked myself, What do I actually want?

[04:19] I remember beginning the conversation with my husband almost expecting, “Well, I guess this is the point when I quit my job, right?” He looked at me and essentially said, “No, we need both incomes. We need the stability.” I thought, “Okay,” and moved on.

[04:34] Looking back, I am so grateful because I didn’t truly want to quit.

[04:40] I loved my work. I was a supervisor, and I loved my team. I loved the difficult problems we were solving and the impact we were making. I loved developing people, leading them, and asking great questions.

[04:55] I loved the culture I felt responsible for creating within my team—a culture that helped people become more curious, grow, and do incredible work.

[05:04] But I had never slowed down long enough to ask myself: What do I love about my job or career? What do I want to do? I was operating from what I thought I should do instead of what I actually wanted. I think that is what so many of us do.

[05:22] We spend our time surrounded by all of our “shoulds,” and we never stop to think about what we actually want.

[05:30] We tell ourselves: Maybe I should quit. I should stay. I should be grateful. I should be able to handle this.

[05:40] We think: If I were doing it right, I should be able to stay home. Or I should want to climb the corporate ladder—but I don’t.

[05:47] Whatever our particular “should” may be, we often make decisions based on what we think we should do—or what we want to prove we can do—instead of understanding what we genuinely want.

[06:00] Somewhere along the way, often in our twenties and thirties, I think many of us forgot how to ask ourselves that.

The Check-Engine Light

[06:04] Our brains are very good at solving problems. The challenge is that sometimes they solve the wrong one. When everything feels overwhelming, the brain wants comfort. It wants to blame something and escape the discomfort.

[06:21] For many of us, our career feels like the biggest thing on our plate, so the job appears to be the problem.

[06:29] We think, “If I can remove the job, I can feel better.” This makes perfect sense—except that sometimes we are treating the symptom instead of addressing what is underneath it.

[06:43] Think about driving your car when the check-engine light comes on.

[06:45] You don’t automatically think, “That’s it. The car is done. I’m trading it in. I don’t want it anymore.” The light is a signal that something needs attention. We need to become curious about what caused it to come on. The warning light is not the actual problem.

[07:03] I know there are people who try to make the light disappear without addressing the underlying issue, but that isn’t what we really want. Something needs our attention.

[07:11] I think burnout, overwhelm, and feeling trapped between work and home function in the same way. We think, “I can’t keep doing this,” and conclude that work itself is the problem.

[07:27] Now imagine for a moment that you do quit your job. What would be different—not externally, but within you?

What Do You Believe Quitting Will Allow You to Feel?

[07:36] What do you believe quitting would finally allow you to feel? Everything we do is connected to a feeling. We want to experience a feeling or avoid one.

[07:45] Maybe you want to feel peace. You want to feel as if you can finally take a breath. Maybe you want to be present at home or at work, and quitting your job seems like the way to make that possible.

[08:01] Maybe you think, “I need to be a good mom.”

[08:04] You don’t want to feel so much shame—as if you aren’t good enough or are failing all the time. Maybe you want to feel like yourself again. You want to have some time for you.

[08:17] I don’t think most women necessarily want to quit. Many of us simply think, “I want all of this to end. It’s so uncomfortable.” That makes sense because our brains are always trying to avoid pain, seek comfort, and find the easiest possible path.

[08:31] When your job feels like the biggest thing on your plate and the obvious thing to eliminate, your brain connects the dots and says, “If I remove the job, maybe I’ll finally have peace. Maybe I’ll finally feel like I’m good enough as a mom.”

[08:40] But here is what I know: If we never understand the feeling we are chasing, we keep asking things outside of us to solve what we want to experience inside of us.

[08:52] Maybe the decision is to quit. Maybe it’s moving to a different company, accepting a promotion, or hiring help around the house.

[09:03] Maybe you need to change your children’s school or daycare, get help becoming more organized, or take a vacation. None of those options is bad.

[09:14] Some of them may absolutely be the decisions you want to make. But we owe it to ourselves to understand what we are trying to create before making a major decision.

[09:27] I don’t want women to make decisions that lead to regret, resentment, or guilt—or to make a decision from an emotional state that already feels terrible.

The Question to Sit With This Week

[09:39] Here is the question I want to leave you with this week: What do I believe quitting my job will finally allow me to feel?

[09:47] You don’t need to rush toward an answer. Sit with the question. Journal about it, and notice what comes up.

[10:01] I have a feeling the answer will teach you far more than immediately deciding whether you should stay in your job or leave it.

[10:06] When we are trying to solve an internal problem—or create an internal feeling we crave—we need to look for the internal solutions first.

[10:11] So often, trying to solve an internal problem with an external solution does not create lasting change.

[10:21] Stay tuned. Next week, we’re going to continue exploring these crossroads—the moments when so many of us want to quit our jobs or make other big decisions. I want to help you make those decisions from your Grounded Self. I also have a workshop coming up that you can check out.

[10:39] With that, I’ll see you next week.