26(M) work in Finance in a big City NA. Had worked at the same company for 4 years post College and didn't really have any intentions to leave (good enough pay to do what I wanted, travel a decent amount, no debt). Prior job had promised me a promotion that they were dragging their feet on and the corporate greed got to me. I was approached by a recruiter and offered a big pay raise at an extremely successful company in my field. The interview process was 6 rounds and I only had 2.5 years of experience in this field but still somehow managed to get the job even though they wanted 5-7 years of experience.
Everything seemed right about this transition and that it was the “amazing career progression/big move to make”!!! Needless to say these last 6 months have been nothing short of a nightmare. I was about 8 years younger than the next youngest employee on my team, everyone was a robot essentially (I am extremely extroverted), I would be in the office and not say a word for an entire 10 hours of work because that was the culture of the team. In addition, as stated earlier, I was underqualified for the position and the training process for the portion of the job I had never done was non-existent. After a few months of just trying to stick it out and teach myself, I finally reached a breaking point and put my two weeks in this morning. I have had an immense amount of anxiety/stress relieved since I had this conversation with my boss. On the backend, I'm working on getting my old job back which looks like it should be good to go, but I know that's only a temporary fix in the meantime.
Where I'm looking for advice is, how do you find out what that next step in your career/life is? I'm extremely entrepreneurial and own three rental properties, but feel like I'm sucked into the corporate hole at the moment. I feel like I'm doing all of the right things in my career and putting way too much pressure on myself, but feel me going back to my old job is only a temporary solution until I get bored over there again. Is your career just simply trial and error until you find something that sticks and you become passionate about? Thinking your whole life you want to do something only to realize you hate the industry is truly an eye-opening experience. Would love to hear some of your stories or any advice as I go through this transition period.
Advice to anyone reading this post that might be going through something similar. There's so much more to life outside of work. Don't let one job just absolutely change the person you are because you think it is what you're supposed to be doing. I was beating myself up for 3 months and now after quitting I realized how stupid that was to create all that excess unnecessary stress. Enjoy the time with your family/friends, make the effort to go to the event even though you have a deadline/work to complete. At the end of the day you are just a number until you aren't anymore.