How To Decide Whether You Should Quit Your Job (And Move To India)

Note: this is a work in progress- comments/suggestions are welcome.

Well, you could insert anything there that’s not where you currently live/drastically different.  But that’s what I was thinking about when I was sleeping for the majority of yesterday.  My brain felt pregnant and it hurt a lot and it needed to give birth to this post.  Also because I’ve been spending some time trying to convince people to quit their job and move to India over the past few months.  And the thing is, the people who know what to think about have a super easy time making the decision (either yes or no).  People always ask me- wasn’t it really hard making that decision?  Not really, no.  For me and my new business partner (who recently quit his job and moved to India a few weeks ago), it was really straightforward. But for others, it takes a while.  And it really isn’t for everyone.  So I was trying to come up with some sort of quiz/flowchart so that you know what sorts of things to consider before you take the plunge.

The thing people don’t really seem to realize is that the thing that holds you back is probably not going to be your current job. Chances are, you feel that your current job is just passable.  It’s all the other things, your coping mechanisms so to speak, that will be the things that make you think twice before changing things up.

Here are the main categories of things I think you should think about:

In your Current situation, rate your:

• Money: How much money do you need?  How much money have you saved? Do you have loans to pay back? What’s your “perfect salary”?
• Social Life: What do you do for fun right now? How happy does this make you?
• Personal Life: Significant others? Family?

If you had the PERFECT job, what is the worst case you would be ok with for each cateogory?:

• Money: How much do you need to be making? (Take into account any loans you still have to pay back, and your spending patterns)
• Social Life: What does a worst case social life look like? Is becoming BFF’s with Skype ok for a while? Are you ok with completely starting over in a new and foreign setting? Will you die if you don’t go out at least 4 times a week?
• Personal Life: How do you feel about being away from family? What about your significant other? Are you looking to get married soon?

Essentially, what this gets at is…how important is your work?  Because if there’s not a big difference between your current situation and the worst case (if you had your perfect job), then chances are, quitting your job and doing something drastically different (like moving to India) maybe is not for you.  If you’re not happy, then chances are, it may not be the job that’s wrong, but one of the other 3 things (which really is the majority of the population).

Thoughts/questions/comments are most welcome.  This is my first pass at this- hopefully over the next year it will become more refined!