Talk To Me: I want to leave my dead-end job but retraining is not an option 

Psychologist Caroline Martin is here to answer your questions on whatever issues you are dealing with in life, from work pressure and stress to loneliness and grief

I dread the thought of going to work almost every day.

I'm in a dead-end job with no prospects of promotion. I want to get out, but I’d probably need to retrain. My wife works part-time, and we have a two-year-old child and a mortgage, so time out to learn new skills is not an option. I have a happy home life, but I dread the thought of going to work almost every day.

Feeling stuck can be deeply uncomfortable, creating a fear that we will never escape this sense of ‘stuckness’. A survival instinct may kick in and you may lash out or recoil and try to hide in a shrunken world. 

This is not unlike the sensation you might have when swimming and fearing you might drown and in many respects, the advice is the same: lean back, make a star of your body, move gently, and breathe. 

While this may seem counterintuitive, especially in outcome-driven work, it’s often the antidote.

The Persian poet, Rumi, encourages us to ‘be patient where you sit in the dark. The dawn is coming’.

Similarly, I believe this space of stuckness offers you space to reflect on the meaning of the underlying fear. Allow yourself to float through a series of reflective questions. 

What does it mean to be in a job where you see no opportunities for professional growth? 

What does it mean to be the primary earner for your young family? 

What does it mean to return to the role of student? 

What does it mean to be an unhappy employee?

I suggest you answer each of these questions in turn and in-depth, writing out, perhaps initially in a stream of consciousness until you have exhausted your reflections. 

Notice the sensations that arise, does your stomach churn, your heart hurt, do muscles tighten? 

Notice any emerging feelings of sadness, anxiety, grief, or longing. 

Caroline Martin, psychologist. Photograph Moya Nolan

Don’t rush to make sense of these sensations and emotions, sit with them, be curious, see what bubbles to the surface. 

Lean back and float for a while with this new awareness. This phase of enquiry may take a few days or a few weeks. When you are ready to be curious, you can explore one of the above questions a little further.

For example, what would it mean to acknowledge that holding the weight of expectation of being the primary earner is exerting a toll on you and your quality of life? 

What would it mean to let go of that idea? What parts, if any, of that idea still hold merit? 

Whose voices are loudest about this expectation: parents, wife, manager, social media feed? Who is likely to explore a different possibility with you? 

Your wife, your friends, a familiar, or a new, mentor?

Consider those people who will serve you best as you move from fear of letting go to action.

The effort to get unstuck can feel less onerous when we rally support. The trusted people in your life can throw light in corners you might not have considered. It is this awareness of the possibility of other perspectives that can reveal something altogether new for you.

This may be your wife’s desire to return full-time to the workplace, an opportunity to rent out the house and travel abroad while your child is young, or the news that a local ETB is offering a Skills for Work programme in your workplace.

I am reticent to make suggestions as this may dilute your own exploration and stifle curiosity. 

A helpful step as we emerge from being stuck is playfulness; it stops us from jumping too quickly into a hasty decision. 

Often we seize the first plausible solution without considering the range of possibilities. By resisting this urge and remaining curious, you are more likely to uncover an assortment of novel answers.

In our quest to grow up and achieve, we can forget the art of play. Your two-year-old is possibly going to be your greatest teacher in this arena.

Your child sees you and the world through eyes filled with awe and wonder. 

To your child, you are that star-shaped individual; as Rumi says, you are ‘not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop’.

While you may feel you’re in a dead-end job, this is perhaps the time for you to truly come to life. Take care.

• Email questions for Caroline: [e-mail]