How To Know If It’s Time To Quit Academia

Listen in as I share ways to analyze what makes you want to quit and what you can do to improve your quality of life as an academic. It might be time to quit…or it might not. Let’s figure it out together!

Reflecting On Why You Want to Leave & Why You Want to Stay

Create two very specific lists. The first should detail the exact reasons that make you want to quit academia. Really dive deep and analyze the root of your feelings of discontent. Some common examples include:

• You are completely overwhelmed with work and only have time to complete urgent tasks. As a result, you are neglecting the important things for growing your career, like writing and publications.
• You are struggling with the bureaucracy of the institution.
• You are unhappy with the quality of your home and family life.

The second list should outline the moments in academia that give you joy. Ask yourself, why did I become a professor? What do I love about my job? Here are examples to inspire you:

• Moments in class when students make a critical connection or change in thought
• Scientific breakthroughs and revolutionary research conclusions
• Writing and publications accomplishments

Separate You From “The Container”

Let’s start by defining what “the container” is. You are not the container. If you are in a professorial job, the container is a professorship at a university. That is the container that currently facilitates your work. However, it is not the only container through which you can do your work. 

For example, you could also do work in these containers:

• A nonprofit
• High school teaching
• Motivational speaking
• Consultancy

Working in academia is not the only option! I want you to start to be able to separate yourself from the container and look at it from an outside perspective. Separate the characteristics of the container from the characteristics of your work. Now look at each of the things on your lists and decide if it is a characteristic of the container through which you are working or a characteristic of your particular job.

Making Academia Sustainable

I’m here to tell you that there is a way to make academia sustainable. Most of the time, the problems that make people want to quit are solvable problems that can be addressed through skill-building and professional development. Scholarly life should be a viable option; we need to create a different way to do it. You can reject the idea of overwork and the glorification of 80-hour weeks and still work in academia.

If this resonates with you, check out Navigate. Navigate is a writing and publication program that coaches academics on managing your publication pipeline, creating an academic mission statement that aligns with your career, and developing a sustainable writing practice. 

“A lot of people are coming to us recently unwilling to work 60 or 80 hour weeks. They want to figure out a sustainable way to do the job within a 40 hour work week. Otherwise they aren’t continuing down the path of academia.”

“Most of the time the problems that are making people feel like they want to quit are solvable problems. They are problems that you can address through skill building, coaching, and professional development. They just don’t know that there is a way to make academia sustainable for them.”

Check out my signature program, Navigate: Your Writing Roadmap®, and start your application process here.

Continue the conversation:

• • Our 12-week Navigate: Your Writing Roadmap® program helps tenure-track womxn and nonbinary professors with a disruptive perspective on their field to publish their backlog of papers so that their voice can have the impact they know is possible. Apply here!
• • Cathy’s book, Making Time to Write: How to Resist the Patriarchy and Take Control of Your Academic Career Through Writing is available in print! Learn how to build your career around your writing practice while shattering the myths of writing every day, accountability, and motivation, doing mindset work that’s going to reshape your writing, and changing academic culture one womxn and nonbinary professor at a time. Get your print copy today or order it for a friend here!
• • Want to train with us for free on your campus? Now you can when you recommend our Scholar’s Voice Faculty Retreats to a decision-maker on your campus! Download the brochure with the retreat curriculum and both in-person and online retreat options here.

Connect with me:

• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• YouTube