How to Know It’s Time to Move On and Why It’s More Okay Than You Think
- Mar 19
- 6 min read
Bronwen Sciortino is an International Author and Simplicity Expert who spent almost two decades as an award-winning executive before experiencing a life-changing event that forced her to stop and ask the question, ‘What if there’s a better way to live?
There comes a moment in every career when the question you’ve been avoiding drifts closer, sits beside you, and stays there, "Is it time to leave?" Even when the answer is whispering the truth, most people don’t want to hear it, especially leaders who care deeply, hold a lot, and have spent years pouring themselves into their roles. Leaving a job isn’t just a decision. It’s a reckoning.
And for many leaders, it feels less like a transition and more like a betrayal of the people they lead, the organisation they’ve championed, and the identity they’ve built along the way. This is why so many stay long past the point where their energy, motivation, and wellbeing are telling a different story. But staying out of guilt, fear, or obligation doesn’t serve you, and it doesn’t serve the people you care about, either. Here’s the quiet truth, when it’s time to go, your system already knows. The work is learning to trust what it’s been trying to show you.
The first sign: When staying costs more than leaving
Most people don’t leave a job because something dramatic happens. They leave because of the slow, steady erosion, a feeling that doesn’t demand attention but instead quietly drains it. You start to notice you’re tired in a way that time off doesn’t fix. You’re doing good work, but it no longer feels like it’s growing you. The spark that once made the role feel meaningful has thinned into maintenance. And somewhere beneath the noise of everyday tasks, there’s a softness that says, this chapter is complete. The internal tug isn’t a failure of commitment. It’s an honest signal of misalignment, the gentle truth that the season you were built for isn’t the season you’re currently in.
The emotional knot: Guilt, loyalty, and worry about letting people down
If leaving were just a practical decision, most people would do it the moment they sensed the shift. But it isn’t practical, it’s personal.
Leaders often wrestle with a heavy emotional knot:
What will happen to my team if I go?
Will I be abandoning people who depend on me?
Will the organisation struggle without my contribution?
Will leaving mean I’ve let people down?
This is especially true when you care deeply about the people you work with. The longer you’ve been there, the more the lines blur, colleagues feel like family, responsibilities feel like ownership, and the role becomes something you protect rather than simply perform. But here’s the gentle truth you rarely hear, you can care about people and still choose yourself. You can love a workplace and still outgrow it. You can support a team without sacrificing your wellbeing to hold everything together. When you stay solely to keep others comfortable, you unintentionally teach them that their needs matter more than yours, and that isn’t leadership. That’s self-abandonment wrapped in loyalty.
Hidden weight: When you’ve accidentally made yourself responsible for everyone
Many leaders carry more than they realise because they’ve unconsciously taken on the emotional load of everyone around them. It starts innocently, you want the team to thrive, you care about their challenges, you want to shield them from unnecessary pressure. But over time, that care can morph into quiet responsibility.
You begin to feel like:
Their wellbeing is mine to manage
Their success is my burden to hold
Their future depends on me staying
And when you finally consider leaving, the idea feels like breaking a promise rather than making a choice. Here’s the shift that liberates, being responsible for people is not the same as being responsible to them. The first is impossible. The second is healthy. You can guide, support, mentor, and lead, but you cannot live someone else’s path for them. Your team is capable, resilient, and deserving of leaders who model real boundaries and self-trust. Leaving doesn’t take something from them, it often teaches them something they’ve never seen done well.
When loyalty becomes a cage instead of a connection
Loyalty is beautiful, until it asks you to stay somewhere you’ve already outgrown. Many leaders stay because they remember what the organisation used to be. Or they feel indebted to the opportunities they were given. Or they’ve woven the role so tightly into their identity that leaving feels like losing a part of who they are. But here’s a perspective twist that softens the edges, loyalty isn’t measured by how long you stay. It’s measured by how honestly you show up, and sometimes honesty asks you to go. The people who truly value you won’t want you to stay small just to stay close.
The pull you can’t ignore: When something new is calling you forward
Every major transition begins long before you acknowledge it. It starts with quiet curiosity, a feeling that you’re meant for something different, or a soft dissatisfaction that keeps resurfacing no matter how often you push it aside. The mind tells you to stay where it’s safe. The body tells you you’re no longer fully alive there. This internal mismatch isn’t restlessness. It’s readiness. When your work stops being a place where you grow, it becomes a place where you shrink, and no amount of loyalty can justify shrinking yourself into a life that no longer fits.
The fear of leaving something you love
Perhaps the hardest moment comes when you still love the mission, the people, or the meaning behind the work, yet something inside you knows it’s time. Leaving something you care about feels contradictory, even cruel. But love doesn’t always mean staying. Sometimes genuine love for the work means recognising when you’re no longer the right person to carry it forward, or when it can no longer carry you. Growth always asks for movement. Staying still out of sentiment doesn’t honour what you’ve built, it limits what could come next.
The long tenure trap: When the years make it harder to go
The more years you invest, the harder it feels to walk away. Not because the role is right for you, but because it’s familiar. Time can disguise misalignment as commitment. It can make you believe that the longer you stay, the more obligated you are to continue staying. But tenure doesn’t equal destiny. Your past contribution is not a contract for your future. You’re allowed to choose again.
The shift that changes everything: Leaving is not letting people down
Here is the moment the perspective twist lands gently and changes the whole story, leaving doesn’t mean you’ve failed the people you lead. It means you’re modelling what it looks like to honour your own path. Your team doesn’t need a leader who stays out of fear. They need a leader who shows them what integrity looks like in motion, someone who trusts themselves enough to step toward what’s right rather than remain in what’s familiar. People don’t learn courage by watching you hold on. They learn courage by watching you let go.
A new way to see this moment
If you’re reading this because the question “Is it time to leave?” has been tapping on your shoulder, consider this your permission slip to listen more closely. You aren’t letting people down by choosing yourself. You aren’t abandoning anyone by honouring your next chapter. You aren’t walking away from something that mattered, you’re walking toward what’s next. Work is a part of your life. It isn’t meant to become your entire identity, your emotional home, or the place where you carry everyone else’s weight. Moving on isn’t the end of something. It’s the beginning of you leading from a place that’s true again. And if that’s what your system has been whispering, it might be time to follow it.
Bronwen Sciortino is a Simplicity Expert, Professional Speaker, and internationally renowned author. You can follow her on her website, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn.
Read more from Bronwen Sciortino
Bronwen Sciortino, International Author & Simplicity Expert
Bronwen Sciortino is an International Author and Simplicity Expert who spent almost two decades as an award-winning executive before experiencing a life-changing event that forced her to stop and ask the question, ‘What if there’s a better way to live?’ Embarking on a journey to answer this question, Bronwen developed a whole new way of living, one that teaches you to challenge the status quo and include the power of questions in everyday life. Gaining international critical acclaim and 5-star awards for her books and online programs,
Bronwen spends every day teaching people that there is an easy, practical, and simple pathway to creating a healthy, happy, and highly successful life. Sourced globally for media comment as an expert and working with corporate programs, conference platforms, retreats, professional mentoring, and in the online environment, Bronwen teaches people how easy it is to live life very differently.
