If you stay there will be trouble, if you go it will be double or so it goes!! Deciding on the best time to leave your job can be fraught with anxiety, requires confidence and courage and is not always for the faint hearted! But if you've come to the end of the road at your company, or the stress levels are too high or you are just plain unhappy it might be time for you to expand your horizons and seek out fresh challenges.

Before you make the leap:
Hang on a sec though - you don't want to jump from the frying pan into the fire - you'll need a well thought out strategy and have considered a number of factors. These include

• Financial considerations - how long can you afford to be between jobs, will you be affected by loss of benefits eg medical insurance?
• Psychological reasons - emotionally how will you feel - many identify themselves by their job/place of work etc, will you miss colleagues/work amenities?
• State of the job market - is the market shrinking or growing?
• Do you know what is your ideal job?

Figuring out your ideal job:
If your current role makes you deeply unhappy it is easy to think "anything would be better than this" but how will you know if the next job is right for you if you haven't figured out what you want? Some simple steps include:

• Know your skills: what are you good at and enjoy doing?
• What organisations do you think you'd like to work for eg large/small, public/private?
• What factors are important to you eg part-time/full time, flexi time, easy commute, part of a team etc
• What do you need in a boss eg hands-on, consultative, prescriptive or fosters independent self-management?
• What will make up your ideal package (be realistic!!). Do you want basic pay, commission, bonus, medical insurance, gym membership etc

Compare the pair!
Once you've drafted the criteria for your ideal job, it's a good idea to compare it to your current job using a 1-10 rating scale where 10 is ideal and 1 unacceptable. You might want to include comments for each rating and think about what needs to happen to make things better, how likely this is to happen and what control you have over making changes. When you've rated both ideal and current job you may be surprised that there is only 1 or 2 things that are problem areas and with a bit of lateral thinking or negotiation it may be possible to overcome and therefore worth your while staying. On the flip side though your ratings may be screaming out that your current and ideal job is oceans apart and its time to cut and run! Make the decision!

A final checklist to help decide if you should stay or go is to analyse the pros and cons. On a piece of paper write:

• The benefits of staying in your current role are...
• The risks of staying are...
• The benefits of leaving are...
• The risks of leaving are...
• The consequences of leaving are...
• The timing of leaving now is...(good/ideal/bad)