“Once you work out the numbers, a weight will be lifted off your shoulders”

Creative Career Conundrums is a weekly advice column from If You Could Jobs. Each week their selected panel of professionals from the creative industry answers your burning career questions to help you navigate the creative journey.

This week’s question:

“How do you walk away from a high-paying, comfortable job that’s quietly draining your creative spirit? On paper, I have everything – stability, financial security, great pay, remote flexibility. But inside, it feels like my creativity is rotting. I feel guilty for even thinking about leaving such a privileged role, especially knowing I may never find another that pays this well. Still, the thought of staying feels worse.

My bank account is growing, but my career and creative fulfilment aren’t. It feels almost foolish – even ungrateful – to consider quitting something so objectively good. But at what point does the opportunity cost become too high? Am I being reckless for wanting to give up financial comfort for something I can’t yet define? It weighs heavily on me that I may never have another job this lucrative…

How do you make peace with giving up something objectively good to chase something uncertain?”

Kat Wong, founder of career change platform Oh Yeah:

First of all, congratulate yourself on acknowledging your feelings about your career. Many experienced people think they must push through or ignore their body’s signals until they impact their health. So giving yourself permission to explore is a big step forward in itself.

Making peace with giving up something ‘objectively good’ for an uncertain future really depends on what you define as success, not someone else’s metric. But right now, you’re defined by guilt for giving up a privileged job and this sense of ‘recklessness’. But are you actually clear on the risks involved in leaving your role to explore, or are you assuming the risk?

Step one: start by calculating your annual income needed to pay the bills. Ask yourself what you want to maintain and what you’re willing to trade off to maintain your fulfilment without this gig. Then work backwards to figure out how many months you need to be in your current pay to get to a point where you can comfortably live without this gig for six months to a year.

I bet it’s not as much as you think. You’ve been so used to a great pay and perks that you haven’t been forced to do that homework for a while.

I promise you, once you work out the numbers, a weight will be lifted off your shoulders: you’ll feel so much clearer and energised because you have the facts in hand on the actual risks involved.

Being in a staff job gives you the luxury of experimenting and building a plan that actually feels good. Take advantage of development courses that your workplace is offering which will start feeding into your future self. You’ll then become more confident and nourished because you’re prioritising what actually matters to you. That new energy and feeling of empowerment far outweighs the heaviness you’ve been feeling. Don’t forget, you worked hard to get to these current privileges in the first place, and your newfound energy will work in your favour again, building towards a life and career that actually matters to you.

In answering your creative career conundrums we realise that some issues need expert support, so we’ve collated a list of additional resources that can support you across things that might arise at work.

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