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Updated November 6, 2025.
You’ve been at the same company, maybe even in the same position, for so long that it’s hard to imagine doing anything else. Even though it’s a bad job for you, it’s also a comfortable job — in that you’re used to the discomfort of hating it so much.
Considering changing careers is really scary, though. There’s a lot more involved than just leaving your current company for a new job. You’ll be exploring something unfamiliar, moving from an expert in your field to learning new things every day… Honestly, it’d be weird if you weren’t afraid to quit your current job and leave your industry — even though you know that’s what you want.
But do other people who feel scared to change industries do it anyway? And should you still quit, even if you have anxiety about it? Will your mental health and well-being be better after quitting your job and leaving your current path? Can you map out a new career trajectory and build a path forward despite your fear?
Here are answers to all of that, plus 5 steps to move through your fear and get the career you want.
Is it normal to be scared to quit my job?
Yes! Being afraid of leaving a job is normal, and changing careers is a huge, scary step, too. We’re hard-wired to be afraid of change: unknowns mean there are potential risks, and risks can mean losses. When it comes to careers and jobs we’ve held for years, we fear the risk of losing income, stability, familiarity, identity/sense of self, and social status, to name a few.
And there’s so much advice floating around that it can be tough to trust ourselves. “Never quit without another job lined up.” “No matter how much you hate it, don’t quit a stable job.” “If it’s not a 100% yes, it’s a no.”
But a 2024 survey revealed this:
70% of millennials have career regrets — the most of any generation in the survey! And across all age groups, 1 in 2 people surveyed regret being in their chosen career.
And while making a change is scary, most of the career regrets found in the survey revolved around inaction. In fact, 44% said they regret NOT making a complete career change.
In other words — while it’s totally normal to be worried about leaving your current job, it’s also very normal to want a career change. And while it’s totally normal to fear the risk and loss associated with a new career path, you’re actually very likely to regret not taking the risk.
Imagine it’s a year from now and you’re still in the same field, in your current role. You still have the same duties, the same bad boss, the same exhausting co-workers and clients. Overall, it’s the exact same company culture; the same situation.
How does it feel? How’s your mental health? Do you even enjoy your free time anymore?
Is it likely that your curiosity about changing careers has gone away — or do you still think about it all the time?
And after another year in the same role, what’s the balance of your fear of the unknown vs. feeling frustrated with your current situation?
So, if it feels likely that you’d regret still being in your current job a year from now… how can you push through the fear and start to do something about it?
5 steps to take when you’re scared to quit your job and change careers — but still want to
1. Identify your fears
We can’t fix what we don’t recognize, so this first step is the best place to start! Go somewhere private, where you can be alone with your thoughts. Open your notes app, a blank doc, or a notebook, or grab a sheet of paper. Then write, sketch, or talk it out with yourself.
When you think about changing careers, what are you afraid of?
Try to jot down your first thoughts without outside input. There’s plenty that you’re scared of already; when someone else starts listing more scary ideas, it can cloud the things you’re actually most afraid of. But if you’re drawing a blank after a few minutes, here are a few common fears:
- Loss of income or benefits: the fear that you won’t earn as much in your new career, will struggle with living expenses (paying rent, mortgage, bills), won’t be able to afford health insurance, or don’t have enough savings or a sufficient emergency fund
- Lack of transferable skills: the worry that your current skills are industry-specific and won’t help you in a different career path; you’ll have to start at the bottom and learn all new skills
- Loss of identity: compromising the sense of self that developed with the time spent and expertise built in your current industry
- Unfamiliar job market: it may have been years since your last job search, so you may be feeling a little rusty on the basics; you’re worried about landing a job in general, much less getting one in a whole new industry
- Regretting your decision: if you realize the grass isn’t greener in a new job or industry, can you change your mind and get your old job back?
- Lack of confidence: maybe others can change careers successfully, but you’re not sure you can
- Lack of clarity: they always say not to quit without another job lined up! Well, you don’t have that; worse, you don’t even know what you want your next job to be
Scared yet? Don’t worry — we’re working through all of this next.
2. For every fear, list something within your control
At first glance, these fears can feel completely out of your hands. After all, you’re not the one setting the budget for your future role, right? You’re not the interviewer who’ll decide whether you’re a qualified candidate.
Plus, the ones that are in your hands seem just as scary! When leaving a job and starting a different career path is your decision, what if you hate your new industry? You’ll have only yourself to blame, right?
Fears like this can keep you stuck. We imagine the worst-case scenario and convince ourselves that’s what will happen.
But learning to be your own “devil’s advocate” in the face of fear is a way forward. By doing this, we can challenge what we thought were absolute facts, find agency in areas we thought we couldn’t control, and learn to balance our fear with hope — and eventually, confidence. It’s a great practice for your mental health.
Compared to listing your fears, this exercise is a lot harder to do on your own — especially at first. A career coach is a great partner who can point out where you’re limiting yourself and support you to dig yourself out of fear and hopelessness. Coaches will personalize questions based on your private conversations together and your unique story.
But short of working with a coach, here are some prompts to look more closely at your fears and begin to challenge them.
Don’t have time or privacy to start a voice memo or write down your responses right now? Bookmark this for later — just reading through the questions won’t have the same impact as dedicating real time and headspace to your responses.
Loss of income or benefits
What’s important to you about keeping your income the same or earning more money in a new role? (Get specific.)
Is it true that starting a new career path always means a lower salary or worse benefits?
If pay and benefits are a top priority for you, how can you use that information during the search for your next job/industry? If not, what resources can you use to prepare for a temporary decrease in income?
Lack of transferable skills
If you believe your skills won’t be applicable to other opportunities and industries, what evidence do you have to support that?
Can you think of a time when you were put in a new situation and had to adapt?
Once you’ve got a situation in mind, replay it… did past experiences help you in that seemingly unfamiliar scenario? How?
Loss of identity
How does your sense of self intertwine with your work life?
How long have you felt that your identity was based on your job? Can you remember a time when it wasn’t?
What’s important to you about feeling connected to your work?
Unfamiliar job market
Have you faced an unfamiliar work situation before? Think of your first interviews in your field or a first day on the job.
How did you handle it? What was the outcome?
(If it didn’t go well) What did you learn from that situation? How has it helped you grow? What’s another scenario that turned out better, despite the newness of the situation?
Regretting your decision
What makes you think you might regret changing careers?
Imagine you’ve researched a new role in a new industry, using the same depth and care you gave to other major decisions in your life. What do you worry you’d miss?
Is it true that you can’t reverse big decisions, including career decisions? What evidence do you have of that?
Lack of confidence
What does being confident look like to you, especially when it comes to making the right decision? (Get specific.)
How does lack of confidence show up in your work life today?
Do you believe you have to be 100% confident before making a decision? Why or why not?
Lack of clarity about your ideal new job or business idea
Is it true that you have no idea what job you’d rather do? Don’t stop at “yes” or “no” — explain your response to yourself.
You feel stuck right now; what would knowing your ideal career do for you? How would it impact your goal of changing careers?
When you’ve felt uncertain about your wants or needs in the past, what helped you get clarity?
3. Choose your next career move (set a goal)
This step sounds huge, and it is! Chances are, you’ll need a lot more self-exploration than just the prompts above to discover and commit to a different career path.
Totally overwhelmed? One reason you may feel stuck is if your personal life currently takes priority over a potential industry change. If that’s true, it’s helpful to assess whether it’s the right time for you to prioritize a change in careers. Job security might be the best thing for you right now, and there’s nothing wrong with that!
The Career Clarity Workbook can help you decide, and provides support and structure to set your next career goal, for just $19. Get your workbook here!
Want more support? You can chat with friends and family members, but even when they mean well, their advice might be more about what they’d do than about what you would choose for yourself. And sometimes, if we’re easily persuaded or people-pleasers, advice can temporarily convince us we want something we actually don’t want.
Instead, a career coach can help you trust your gut and uncover your ideal job or business idea — not someone else’s. They can help you to:
- Isolate what’s causing your fears
- Understand the significance of each concern for you
- Learn what helps you feel more secure in decision-making
- Challenge your fears in ways that work specifically for you (no generic advice)
Does that sound like the support you want? Learn more about The 4-Step Career Reset!
4. Build an action plan — starting with baby steps
Once you’ve chosen your next move — whether a new job in a different industry or a business idea — you need a clear plan.
Exactly how you build that plan depends on you. When designing a plan of action, what motivates you? What overwhelms you? How does your comfort zone factor into the goals you set and the speed at which you execute? What’s your tolerance for working without a safety net, so to speak?
Do you like to set outcome-based goals, like “Quit my job and land a new position in my ideal field by the end of this year” — where some factors are outside your control?
In that scenario, you may do everything in your power during your job search. You can build relationships, pore through hundreds or thousands of job descriptions, and be ruthless about what you apply to. But ultimately, to hit this goal, someone has to extend a favorable or negotiable job offer in your ideal field. And depending on your goals, you may not want to submit your resignation letter by the end of the year without another job lined up.
Alternately, you might prefer to focus on the action steps, like, “Identify my ideal career by the end of this quarter” — where the ability to achieve the goal is completely in your control.
With that type of goal, no outside factors are required; you’ll achieve the outcome if you dedicate the time and effort to self-exploration, research, and your willingness to commit to a decision. (Although the support of a career coach can help you do this more efficiently and effectively!)
There are no right or wrong answers here. Just think about what’s worked for you in the past and what tends to derail you.
Then, get granular! It’s tough to start out on a journey like “Define your ideal career” without setting a few goalposts between here and there. So write out your next steps in whatever way is most helpful to you. Start from the end and work backwards. Or, start from today and figure out tomorrow’s action item.
Don’t forget to include a timeline for each action step! You can set deadlines for everything in your entire plan, or for a single step at a time — that depends on you, too.
5. Design an accountability system
Coaches, friends, family members, trusted coworkers, mentors, or in rare cases, even bosses can be incredible support systems for your career transition — you’ll have to use your best judgment there!
You might incorporate daily check-ins with your accountability partner, weekly journaling, social media posts to share your journey, or regular coaching sessions. Maybe you take yourself out to coffee every Saturday morning to work on your goals, or share progress with your partner on Sunday nights as an antidote to the Sunday Scaries.
Whatever you choose, the most important things are that it keeps you excited to move forward and helps you get back on track if you lose motivation — a safety net on an unfamiliar journey.
Be afraid — and do it anyway
We can’t eliminate uncertainty or fear 100%. But we can reduce it! We can talk back to it. And we can move in the right direction despite it.
Being afraid is part of doing something new. It makes you human, and you’re not alone in it!
With dedicated time and space to explore what you want, a concrete plan with a timeline, and the right support system in place, you’ll have what you need to maintain your well-being and keep moving toward a more fulfilling new job or business — instead of being held back by “what ifs.”
Ready to face your fears and tackle your career change head-on?
Get started with a free intro call —
