We're terrified to leave a seemingly perfect job for fear of what other people will think.

“You’re crazy to be giving this up.”

“Why would you ever leave this job, it’s the best there is!”

“People would kill to be at this company.”

I've had so many conversations recently with people who have fancy jobs that look incredible on paper, have a great salary, don't even ask them to work too hard in some cases, and look like success to the outside world... but aren't what the person wants.

Something is missing, whether it's purpose, contribution, flexibility to focus less of their life on work, or something they can't put their finger on yet.

They've all known that it's not the right fit but they worry that they'll appear ungrateful if they leave the job. That they’ll crumble under the backlash they get from other people questioning their decision.

And then the inner voices kick in.

Several months ago I participated in a fantastic leadership course where I did one of the most confronting yet rewarding tasks in recent memory - make a list of all the areas in my life where I've been "tolerating incompletion" and get them completed.

(If you're cringing right now just reading that suggestion, you know exactly how I felt.)

This could be chores, hobbies, things we told other people we'd do, etc, and from that list, we then had the challenge to complete five of the items by the end of the weekend.

I made a list of 5 things (which was uncomfortably easy to do) by walking around my house and seeing unfinished projects, unused cooking gadgets, household chores and more. Starting the list initially filled me with shame but by the end of the list I was filled with a new sense of freedom and determination. By acknowledging the things that I had been tolerating I could actually choose to do something about them.

But there was one item that I was horrified by how long I had left it incomplete.

The most embarrassing thing that I had been tolerating was... a jar of cooking grease.

A few weeks ago my husband and I had dinner with another couple and the conversation turned to risk tolerance.

Our friends said they're solidly in the risk-averse category and my husband and I agreed that we are too - we're savers, we're not incredibly spontaneous and we love a good plan. 

It took our friend a minute, but it was clear that our answer wasn't fully computing. He looked at me and said "but clearly you're a risk-taker because you started your own business".

This was a really interesting point and I had to think about it for a minute.

The first answer that popped into my head was "it didn't feel like a risk".

When you’re crushed by an ill-fitting job, it can be hard to talk to your friends for fear of burdening them with your career problems.

But today, I actually want to talk to the people who know someone who is crushed and are watching the struggle without knowing how to support the person they care about. That can also be a really tough position to find yourself in.

What can you do to support someone who is crushed by their job?

Your friend/family member/colleague is clearly struggling. They don’t want to burden you with their challenge and yet you would do absolutely anything to support them. The question is what can you do?

I want to help relieve you of your feelings of helplessness with a couple resources and steps you can take…

I recently read a fantastic book, Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, and I was really struck by an interesting framework they shared that is used by Solutions-Focused Therapists. They use the Miracle Question and the Evidence Question to help patients resolve a particular problem they’re experiencing.

The therapist first poses The Miracle Question:

"Something must have happened! I look different!"

“Suppose that you go to bed tonight and sleep well. Sometime, in the middle of the night, while you are sleeping, a miracle happens and all the troubles that brought you here are resolved. When you wake up in the morning, what’s the first small sign you’d see that would make you think, ‘Well, something must have happened—the problem is gone!’?”

The book points out that the question “doesn’t ask you to describe the miracle itself but to identify the tangible signs that the miracle happened.”

I started thinking about this in the context of being crushed by your job.

It’s OK to have a boring job.

(Am I even allowed to say that?)

I don’t think anyone ever tells us that it’s OK to have a boring job. It definitely doesn’t work for everyone. And it definitely does work for some people.

I only just recently noticed how revolutionary this message seems to be. I’ve been sharing it more and more often, the most recent time was at a workshop I co-hosted a few weeks ago. Participants kept coming up to me afterward saying how grateful they were to hear someone say that it was OK to have a boring job.

So now I’m on a mission to tell people that it’s OK to have a boring job if it works for them.