How to find out whether it's the job, the boss or the season
It is 11 p.m. on a Sunday, and an offer letter sits open in one tab while a blank resignation waits in another. The job offer is dependable, if not thrilling. For a month, the resignation letter has stayed at two lines. Your reluctance to leave is not really about loyalty. It is that you cannot say with any honesty whether you dislike the work, dislike your manager, or have simply endured the hardest nine months of your career for reasons that have nothing to do with either.
What is at stake
If you leave and the real cause was a rough season, you have swapped a workplace that knows you for one that does not, all to solve something that would have eased by spring. If you stay and the cause was the job or the boss, you have committed to another year of Sunday nights just like this one, and that offer will not still be on the table. Both errors are costly. Ahead of any move, a person in Greater Hartford can confirm only one of these elements.
The turning point
That is why the decision can wait until morning. Treat this as a short trial run, since a vague sense that you keep mulling it over proves nothing on its own. One notebook, three variables, thirty days. You change one thing at a time and record what follows, the same way you would if you were asked to diagnose a problem belonging to someone else.
Why this matters to people beyond you
Deloitte's 2025 survey of 7,500 women found that 36% report more stress than a year earlier, and 29% describe their mental health as poor. Hard stretches are ordinary, and while you are inside one, a rough season and a rough job can feel exactly the same. The women who walk away from a role gracefully are not automatically the ones who endured the worst treatment. What sets them apart is that they paused and tested their assumptions first.
Here are three stages to follow over the coming month.
A. Week one, change nothing. At the close of each day, score it from one to ten and write one short line naming whatever drained you most. Come Friday, your scores will reveal whether the bad days trace back to a single colleague, a particular kind of task, or simply show up everywhere at a steady level. Whatever that pattern shows is your first real finding.
B. During weeks two and three, turn your attention to the manager variable. Ask for one concrete adjustment, such as: "Would it work to lock in our one-on-one as a standing thirty minutes every week? I'll circulate the agenda the afternoon before." Reshape one repeating exchange that wears you out. Keep scoring. Should your scores climb, you have pinpointed the cause, and it can be addressed without submitting a resignation.
C. In week four, the job variable takes center stage. Hand off or drop the one assignment you fear most, and claim a single project you actually care about. After that, block out a full Friday, leaving your phone somewhere out of reach. If your scores improve only when you are away from the office, the cause is likely the season, and it will pass. If your mood lifts once the feared task is off your plate, then the trouble lies with the role itself. If nothing budges, you have your answer already.
When the thirty days end, read the notebook from start to finish as if it were a report on someone else. That answer will show up in your notebook. You may still accept the offer, and if you do, you will be making the move as a considered diagnosis, not a gamble.
For the moment, the resignation can remain unsent in its draft folder. Thirty days from now you will either discard it or send it with confidence, and in both cases you will avoid lying awake at 11 p.m. wondering what to do. on a Sunday.