'I'm unhappy where I've worked for 10 years but have doubts about new job offer'

28 November 2023 , 16:05

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Reader is unhappy in her job but needs to bring in a steady, reliable income (Image: Getty Images)

Dear Coleen

I’m a woman aged 39 and have been offered a new job after feeling very unhappy in the place where I’ve worked for 10 years.

I put a lot in to get this new job – two interviews and a big presentation – and was ecstatic when I heard I’d been successful. But now I’m having real doubts about taking it. Although my current job isn’t challenging me at all, my manager is very passive ­aggressive and I feel she doesn’t respect me, I’m also quite scared of leaving something so steady in a cost-of-living crisis.

I’ll be on the usual probation period at my new job, so I feel under pressure to impress. I also think I might have imposter syndrome and I keep waking up at night worrying if I can actually do the job. I’d love your opinion on what I should do. I have one child and a long-term partner. He works as a contractor, so my job needs to be the steady, reliable one.

I can’t sit on this job offer for too long, mulling over the terms and conditions. I’m in desperate need of some sensible advice.

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Coleen says

Just do it! Life is too short not to take opportunities when they show up.

Making a big move always feels scary, as well as exciting, but you have to take calculated risks in life in order to create new things and grow as a person. It’s taken me about 50 years to really grasp that, but I’m getting into the habit of making brave decisions instead of sticking with what I know and living in my comfort zone.

Look, not every decision you make will work out – that’s part of life – but a lot of them will and there’s no reason why this new job won’t be great.

I think when you’ve been somewhere a long time, you become institutionalised or get a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, so you don’t believe you can exist beyond it. I’ve experienced that myself – being scared to leave ­somewhere I’d been for a long time. But, there’s no better feeling than doing it and ­realising it was the right move.

I understand imposter syndrome, too. I’ve suffered with it my entire life! But it’s in your head and there’s no way you’d have been offered this job if they didn’t think you were the perfect person to do it. They believe in you – you just have to start believing in yourself. Take the job, don’t tread water where you are for another 10 years, wishing you’d gone for it.

All change is unsettling, even good change, but once you embrace it, you’ll feel excited, challenged and more alive.

Good luck.

Coleen Nolan