Take the train or stay at home? It sounds a little odd. We don’t yet know whether we need to go anywhere. And if we do, what other ways could we get there, and how would we choose?
Yet we sometimes try to find one universal answer to questions like these.
For example:
“I’m tired. I want more time for myself. But am I making full use of my abilities? Perhaps I need a different profession? And another degree to get there?”
After all that thinking, one question remains: should I quit or stay?
What exactly is leaving supposed to resolve? Give me a chance to rest? Find a use for my abilities? Free up time to study?
And why do we expect there to be just one answer?
Expecting one career to solve everything
I recently read a story by someone who had already left a well-paid consulting job. He wanted more freedom, the chance to do work that interested him, perhaps to start something of his own.
But leaving had not brought more certainty.
Return to consulting? Familiar work, a good income and a clear career path. Try a creative industry? Interesting, but with a much less predictable future. Go into medicine? Practical professional skills and a sense of meaningful work were appealing.
Alongside these options were questions about where to live, running a business and financial independence. He was researching, comparing and trying to distinguish his own wishes from prestige, fear and other people’s expectations. He noticed that he was constantly trying to optimise his entire future.
What interests me in this story is how much the next career is expected to provide. Income, interest, freedom, a sense of personal worth, a future he can picture. It should also help him decide where and how to live. As though all of this needed to be resolved by choosing a career direction.
Each of these wishes is understandable. But how do we compare options when we look to one for stability, another for the chance to finally do something of our own, and a third for the feeling that our work matters?
Today, money seems most important. Tomorrow, after talking to friends, we want something more again. After a difficult day, peace and quiet become the priority. The options stay the same, but the answer keeps changing.
A study published in 2025 in the European Journal of Operational Research examined how the number of conflicting objectives affects decisions. In laboratory tasks, increasing that number significantly raised cognitive load. Participants began considering only some of the objectives, and their choices became less consistent. Life decisions are more complex than laboratory tasks, but the finding helps explain why comparing options can be so exhausting.
Having several important goals is natural. Difficulty can grow when we expect one choice to deliver everything. Whenever an option looks more attractive than the others, we notice something it cannot give us.
Two options, several questions
Sometimes we also narrow the choice to just two options.
Stay or leave? Accept the offer or turn it down? Let someone go or give them another chance?
There are two options in the question. But that question may contain several others.
So I would pause at this question: what am I trying to resolve through this choice?
Let’s return to the person in the opening example and keep both options open for now.
“I want more time for myself.” For what, exactly? Sleep, time with family, interests outside work, or exploring another profession? The answers could lead to different decisions.
“I’m not using my potential.” This could mean abilities they have no opportunity to use, familiar work that no longer offers a sense of growth, or comparison with others: a feeling that they should be further along by now.
“Perhaps I need another degree.” Which kind of work would require it? If the professional direction is still unclear, it is worth exploring what the person hopes to gain from studying itself.
It’s easy to jump straight to advice here. Take a holiday. Talk to your manager. Sign up for a course. But until we understand what needs to change, each suggestion may become another part of an already complicated decision.
How the question changes
Imagine that, as we explore this example, it becomes clear that the person is still interested in their profession. They want to develop within it, but their current job consists almost entirely of repetitive tasks. Additional responsibilities take up their evenings, leaving no energy for more challenging projects or learning.
The question about leaving becomes more specific. Could the work and workload change in their current position? Is there another role within the same profession that would give them room to grow in working conditions that suit them?
Now they can compare vacancies by what they would actually do, what they would learn and how much time the work would take. They can also check whether another degree is needed for a particular direction.
But something else might emerge: even with better hours and more interesting tasks, they do not want to stay in this profession. What keeps them there is an income they have spent years working towards, while an entirely different kind of work appeals to them.
Then we need to explore a possible transition: what they know about the new work, what they are only imagining, how their living circumstances would change, and which constraints they are willing to accept.
The initial question, “Should I quit or stay?”, is the same. The decisions we move towards are quite different.
What are we trying to preserve?
Familiar work can provide more than a salary. Belonging and recognition: people know you, listen to your views, and expectations are clear. A transition may mean losing all of this, even though your professional experience does not disappear.
So the wish to preserve stability may involve both specific financial needs and a desire to remain an experienced, confident person. Both matter when making a decision.
Where we begin our thinking matters too. A meta-analysis published in 2025 found that the way a choice is framed influences the order in which we bring arguments to mind. In experiments, changing that order weakened the influence of the initial framing on the choice. For me, this is another reason to pause and ask: are we considering both possibilities, or mainly looking for reasons to stay? Or perhaps only reasons to leave?
We cannot preserve everything. Nor can we meet every need at once. A new profession may require years of study. A lighter workload may mean a lower income. An interesting opportunity sometimes comes at an inconvenient time.
But there is a difference between “If I choose this, I lose everything else” and understanding exactly what will change, for how long, and under what conditions that would be acceptable to me.
Often, there is a sequence of decisions to make. First, clarify which working conditions would suit the person. Explore a professional direction. Check the education requirements. Then return to the question of making a transition.
Or there may be no time for that sequence, and a decision has to be made now. Then it becomes especially important to understand what is essential, where we can compromise, and what will remain unknown for now.
Clarity doesn’t necessarily mean feeling sure that everything will work out the way we hope. It may mean: I understand what I am choosing this for, what I am trying to preserve, and what cost I am willing to accept.
With that understanding, we can decide whether to go.
And then, how to get there.
If your own “stay or leave” question brings together several different issues, we can start with a short introductory conversation. You can tell me about your situation, and we can discuss whether I could help and what working together might look like.
Arrange an introductory conversation — up to 20 minutes, free of charge.