There is an article over at the Career Journal called, When a High-Paying Job Keeps You Low. At first glance, this title makes you say, “oh, what a rough life”. You should be grateful to even have a high-paying job, right? In my opinion, a job you hate is miserable whether it paying a lot of money or a little money. A high-paying job that you hate is probably a worse situation, because the paycheck will keep you there longer, and you’ll keep justifying why you should stay at that job.

So, what’s the solution? You probably have a high-paying job for a reason. Most people don’t fall into high-paying jobs. You must have a skill set that is in high-demand and/or you have an advanced degree. You might not even hate the work you’re doing, you might just hate where you work. Put together a three year plan. It’s hard to make a job or career transition, so you must have a detailed plan. Don’t do something rash, like quit your job because you’ve had enough one day. That would just be dumb, and you probably don’t have the finances to cover your butt for the next 3 to 6 months that it might take to replenish your main income stream.

- Identify what you hate most about your job.
- Write down ten different things that you could see yourself doing.
- Whittle down that list to three choices that you can realistically see yourself doing.
- Start researching those three choices, meet new people that can take you towards that goal, and prepare for the change.
- Go search for that new job or start the new business.

This will not be something that happens overnight. You need to give yourself an adequate amount of time to switch careers. If you stay in a job that you hate because of the money, you will eventually find that you never grow professionally, and your family and leisure life will suffer because of it.