If you've ever quietly found yourself thinking that you've fallen out of love with the job you've worked a lot of your life towards, or found yourself scrolling job sites for anything that doesn't involve a consult room, I want to start by saying this: I hear you.
This isn't a post that's going to try to talk you out of how you feel. Your feelings are real, and they're telling you something important. But I'd love to offer a little bit of perspective that might take some of the pressure off the enormous decision you're carrying around.
Why it feels so high stakes
For most of your life, you've probably been praised for the path you chose. For a lot of people (not everyone, I know) becoming a vet or a vet nurse was a lifelong dream. Something you worked towards for years, maybe from your teens, maybe as a brave career change later on, maybe as a reconnection with something you'd always wanted to do.
And now you're here, and in some ways it's taken over your life. It isn't how you thought it would be. And the one question that keeps going round and round is: should I stay, or should I go?
Of course that feels high stakes. This isn't just a job. For many of us, it's wound into our identity. Who am I, if I'm not a vet? What will people think? What was all of that for?
The one big question
Here's something I find really helpful to understand.
The psychologist Daniel Kahneman described how, when we're faced with a really difficult question, our brains have a habit of quietly swapping it for a simpler one, usually without us noticing. It's a shortcut. It saves energy. And when we're stressed, overwhelmed or burnt out, our brains lean on shortcuts even more.
So a big, complicated, nuanced situation (my workload, my team, my health, my values, my finances, my future) gets compressed into one stark question: stay or go?
It's also really easy to think in black and white when we're exhausted. Everything becomes all or nothing. I love it or I hate it. I stay forever or I leave tomorrow.
The trouble is, that one question carries so much weight that it can feel impossible to answer. And while it stays unanswered, we stay stuck.
The questions beneath the question
What if "should I stay or should I go?" isn't the most powerful question you could be asking right now? What if there are a few quieter questions underneath it that could help you chip away at the big one?
Here are some we often explore with people:
Is it the job, the place or the pace? Sometimes what we're desperate to leave isn't veterinary medicine at all. It's a particular rota, a particular culture, a particular level of exhaustion.
Are there changes that could make this role feel different? Fewer hours, a different shift pattern, a different caseload, more support, a conversation with your manager you've been putting off.
Am I willing to try those things, or have those conversations? This one takes honesty. Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes the answer is "I've tried, and I'm done", and that's important information too.
What are my strengths, and when do I get to use them? Think of the moments when you feel most like yourself at work. What are you doing in them?
What's important to me? Your values are a compass. When your work and your values are pulling in opposite directions, everything feels harder.
What do I actually enjoy? Not what you should enjoy. What you genuinely like doing.
Can I find small moments of joy? We're never going to love every single day of our jobs. That's part of being human. But we don't want to hate every single day either. Where are the small good moments, and is there room for more of them?
Have I got a support system in place? Who can you talk to honestly? Who's in your corner?
Slowing down to speed up
This kind of reflection takes time. And I know that when you feel desperate, time is the last thing you want to hear about.
But sometimes we need to slow down to speed up. To get curious instead of urgent. In the short term, that might mean giving yourself a bit more space to think: some time off if you can, or a temporary reduction in hours, so you're not trying to make the biggest decision of your career from a place of total depletion.
Decisions made from survival mode tend to be about escape. Decisions made from a calmer place tend to be about direction.
What we've seen
Over the years, so many people have come to the Vet Empowered Signature Programme saying they wanted to leave.
Some of them found a way to make it work for them. They changed roles, changed practices, changed how they related to their work, set boundaries that actually held, and rediscovered what they loved about vetmed in the first place.
Others decided, with their whole chest, that it was the right time to explore something new. And they did it from an empowered place, not from a place of "I'm done with this." They knew what they were moving towards, not just what they were running from.
Both of those outcomes are brilliant. Staying is not a failure. Leaving is not a failure. The only thing we'd love to help you avoid is making that choice while you're running on empty and can't hear yourself think.
Where to start
If any of this resonates, here are a few gentle next steps:
- Pick one of the questions above and spend five minutes writing about it, without editing yourself.
- Try our free 3-Day Reset: three days of audio, video and a reflective workbook to help you understand why you feel stuck and find your next step.
- If you'd like space to work it through with someone who's been there, take a look at our 1:1 coaching or the Signature Programme.
Whatever you decide, you don't have to work it out on your own.
Vet Empowered offers coaching, not therapy or crisis support. If you're struggling right now, please reach out to Vetlife, available 24 hours a day on 0303 040 2551.
