How do you know when you should continue to cope or just quit?

It’s a difficult position to be in for sure because quitting is very scary. What’s on the other side when I say “That’s it! No more!” Am I going to be able to support myself financially? Do I have any clue what I am going to do next?

What does coping look like? Tolerating things you wouldn’t usually tolerate if you had the freedom to choose. Settling, accepting, giving in to futility. Not seeing any other way out, so going along to get along.

The thing with coping as a strategy is that eventually the edges begin to fray, and your life either explodes or implodes. Either way, the result is usually detrimental to you and your body.

In your coping state you may:

• Lack boundaries – do things you don’t want to do or things that goes against the grain of everything you stand for and believe in. You know that when you engage in these activities you don’t FEEL good and that is a huge red flag.
• Have lost connection to your essence – you find yourself speaking in a way that’s unnatural, you’re copying others more, you’re feeling more and more unsteady, like you’ve lost your way, but you didn’t have a map to begin with so you’re not sure what to do next.
• Be playing small – not speaking up for yourself, sharing your point of view, not following through on what seems absolutely right for you, allowing others to keep you boxed up and quiet
• Be ignoring those things you’re naturally drawn to – your gifts. You keep thinking you have to show up a certain way, and follow every one else and so you find yourself in an endless cycle of overthinking and overworking, feeling more and more drained and depleted as if you’re running on fumes.

Make no mistake – our bodies speak and when we don’t listen the results can be catastrophic.

Perhaps you are in a career for most of your life and you’re thinking that this is all there is for you – you’ll just push through.

Ask yourself this – how great is the risk? Is it worth risking your life, your peace, your sanity, your health, your right to be you?

We have been taught that you can’t make a living being who you are. So we become who we think we need to be in order to survive and earn comfortably.

What if it isn’t supposed to be hard?

The more we are in alignment with our true selves, the easier everything else gets. I am not suggesting that you won’t have to put effort in. Understanding yourself takes work, but it is worthwhile work because then you are in a much better position to negotiate on your behalf. It will take looking at your gifts (and we all have them, it may not be obvious right now to you), framing your expertise, carefully considering your strategy and decisions and being disciplined enough to take daily action to prosper in your purpose.

This can happen at any age, but if you are over forty chances are you are beginning to feel the burnout from the ways you learned to cope and mask your general unhappiness.

You are at a crossroads today. It’s not too late to begin to invest in a brighter future for you and your family. Take your first step – click here.