"Leap": How to leave your job with no plan B

For more than a decade, listeners tuned in to hear Tess Vigeland host the public radio program "Marketplace," but in 2012, she decided to quit her dream job without the safety net of knowing what she would do next.

"You have to figure out what's best for you in your life and not what everyone else is expecting of you," she said Tuesday on "CBS This Morning."

In her new book "Leap: Leaving a Job with No Plan B, To Find the Career and Life You Really Want," Vigeland outlines three indicators it might be time to set sights on a new opportunity: feeling undervalued, questioning future plans and seeing signs of stress on your body.

"My hair stopped growing; for other people it's like a mystery back pain and they're in perfect shape; for other people people, migraines that they've never had before. So pay attention to your body, it will speak to you," she said.

For many Americans, that time may be now. According to a 2014 Gaullup poll of more than 80,000 employees, less than one-third of Americans were "engaged" with their jobs and nearly 70 percent were not.

Vigeland was perfectly happy at her job, but still said it was time to move on.

"When you're in a job, you don't think about what the next step might be, especially if you love it as much as I did, but I just really felt like I needed a change," she said.

But it wasn't as easy as she thought it might be.

"I found that ... everything that you hear about, 'Oh just follow your passion and the riches will come and everything will be great,' that's not exactly true," she said.

For Vigeland, that reality became apparent with regards to finances. In hindsight, Vigeland said she could have saved more money -- especially as a former host of a personal finance show.

"Do as I say not as I did," she said. "But you, know my husband had a good job, we did some back of the napkin math, and we knew that we'd be able to pay the mortgage, but our lifestyle changed significantly."

Even still, she said taking the leap has been extremely satisfying.

"You absolutely have to come up with a new definition of success," she said. "And you know, maybe you're taking a step down a career ladder and that needs to become okay. Maybe you're going to a different career ladder and you're going to start at the bottom rung of that one. That's okay too."