Fear of leaving your corporate job

fear of leaving comfortable job

As we’ve been exploring the reasons why you might not leave your corporate job to set up on your own – assuming that you want to – we looked last week at the fear of failure. We saw how failure could mean making the wrong career choice, not earning enough money, and being judged by other people. But although the fear of failure is one of the biggest fears, the scary stuff doesn’t end there! Here are three more fears that might be holding you back from leaving your corporate job to set up on your own – and why you shouldn’t let them.

1. The fear of starting from scratch

You’ve been in your corporate role for many years – maybe even your entire career to date – and you know exactly how it works. You have extensive experience of the job and the sector, and because of that you also have the respect of your managers and your peers. You’re operating within your comfort zone, where you understand the environment and you know how to do a good job. Leaving this comfort behind to start something different feels like you’re turning your back on all of that experience and respect and starting from scratch.

I always find it ironic that if you think back to when you really were starting from a blank slate as a new graduate, that was the time in your career when you had the most confidence! The arrogance with which you left university and applied to prestigious jobs when you had zero experience is in pretty stark contrast to the insecurities you are now experiencing when trying to do the same 10 to 15 years later.

The truth is that you really aren’t starting from scratch. Yes, there are big differences between running your own business and being an employee and, yes, there is a lot to learn – but that doesn’t mean that you’re drawing a line through all that time in a big corporation. You have a host of transferable skills – both hard skills and soft skills – that you’re bringing to the table and that are very much still relevant in this new world.

Now, you may be contemplating starting a business in a completely different area than the one you’ve been working in. If that’s the case, the learning curve will be particularly steep and you’ll have to work especially hard at developing new skills, as well as building both a network and a reputation in this new area, and that will take time.

One way to make the transition smoother is to take it step by step. For example, I didn’t quit my marketing job in 2013 to become a coach and a writer. Instead, I started by using my skills and experience from my corporate job in a freelance and consulting capacity, and it was only over time that I then trained and certified to be a coach, and had more and more writing published, evolving my business to what it is now.

Take smaller steps in the right direction and the change won’t be as extreme – it’ll take longer, but you’ll build a stronger and more sustainable foundation for the future.

2.  The fear that the grass won’t actually be greener

There may be a number of things you don’t like about the corporate world and that are pushing you to want to leave and do your own thing. Maybe you dislike office politics, the endless emails and meetings, and the pressure from other people to always do more. It’s easy to fantasise about life outside of this world, a life in which you make your own decisions, you only do work that you enjoy, and you set your own goals and expectations. But what if that really is just a fantasy and the things you hate about corporate work exist in the entrepreneurial world as well? What if there are other downsides to working for yourself that you haven’t had to deal with in your full-time job?

The grass does always seem greener when you’re looking onto the other side without having experienced the day to day of what it really entails, and once you get a closer look you’ll get a more realistic understanding of what it entails. Working for yourself, you will still have to deal with difficult clients, customers or suppliers; you’ll still have to answer emails and probably attend some meetings; and, to make matters worse, you’ll be all alone and without the infrastructure and team that you have now in a large, established company.

But the best thing about running your own business is exactly that: you’re running the show. That means that you’re setting your own expectations, with no boss to decide your work plan; you can choose which clients, customers and suppliers to work with, and say “no” to the ones that are problematic; and you can decide how you want to work, for example, 100% virtually and from home (avoiding those meetings that you so dislike!).

Working for yourself also doesn’t have to mean working by yourself. You can hire a virtual assistant or freelancers to do the work you most dislike; you can partner with a co-founder; or you can even build a team of your own and set the expectations and culture for the organisation yourself. You are shaping your own business model, so although there will always be aspects you don’t particularly love – especially when you’re just starting out – you will have far more control and freedom to design how you want to work in your own business and avoid the things you want to avoid. (Oh, and by the way, as we said last week: if you don’t enjoy it, if you find that working for yourself is not for you, then there’s nothing to stop you from choosing to apply for another full-time job.)

3.  The fear of having to work even harder

One of the reasons why you want to leave the corporate 9 to 5 is likely that you want more flexibility and less stress. You dream of spending more time with your family, having the opportunity to do more things that you love outside of the office, and maybe doing more travelling or finally writing that book. But although a full-time job can be stressful, it’s also a world that’s both comfortable and predictable, given that you’re operating within that comfort zone where you know what you’re doing, and your boss and your peers know and respect you. As someone put it to me, “you can coast – and still get paid”. Won’t running your own business mean more work than ever before?

It’s true that the first months and even years of running your own business will be hard work – and you definitely can’t expect to coast and rely on other team members to pick up the slack when it’s just you, without having a negative impact on your business results. It’s also true that you may have colleagues who left their job but have since given up and gone back to a full-time job when it didn’t work out as they had hoped. But the image of ‘the hustling entrepreneur’, who never sleeps and has no personal life, doesn’t have to be your reality.

First of all, you are the one who decides how hard you work and no one can make you work harder. You may protest and say that I’m over-simplifying things and that you’ll be ‘forced’ to work hard in order to make money… but you are choosing the business model and it’s up to you to make strategic decisions that will create a sustainable business based on the parameters that work for you. You are also choosing what your income goals are and within what time frame – so if you prefer, you can set less ambitious goals in the short term, start your business as a side hustle alongside your existing job so that you don’t have the immediate pressure to replace your salary, and accept that the pace will be slower and the whole process will take longer.

I’m not going to tell you that starting and running your own business will be easy. If that’s your expectation as you consider leaving your corporate job to set up on your own then you probably need to adjust your expectations! But the magic of designing your own business and working life is that you’re choosing work that is both enjoyable and fulfilling for you, and that, even if you’re working ‘harder’ on paper, you’ll find a renewed sense of energy and enthusiasm that will make it feel like you’re not!

Of course, I don’t expect that any of this is going to remove your fears altogether. As I always say, ‘scary’ tends to come along for the ride with ‘exciting’ – and I would even argue that that’s the whole point! You’re choosing to step out of your comfort zone, to challenge yourself and to inject a whole new dynamic into your career. But we will continue to explore how to make this rollercoaster ride more comfortable in the coming weeks.

Are there other fears that are getting in the way of your move out of the 9 to 5? Comment below!

SHARE THIS ARTICLE
Facebook
Pinterest
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

You might also be interested in these articles

“Everything you’ve ever
wanted is one step outside
your comfort zone.”

Book a free consultation

Get on the phone with Anna to discuss your unique goals and situation to determine the best programme for you, so you can start taking action towards creating the business and lifestyle you desire.

Get a free assessment of your business

Download this scorecard to review where you are on each of the 5 pillars of building a life outside of the 9 to 5, and get clear action steps to help you fill the gaps.

We will use and protect your data in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Find a way to quit your job and start your own business

Download this free roadmap to start planning your transition out of the ‘9 to 5’ and into working for yourself.

We will use and protect your data in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Looking to grow your expert business?

Download this FREE Business Assessment to identify the gaps that are preventing your growth so that you can take actionable steps towards building a more successful and sustainable business.

We will use and protect your data in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Thinking about starting your own business?

Download this FREE roadmap to start planning your transition from the 9 to 5 and designing a business that will bring you more freedom, flexibility, and fulfilment.

We will use and protect your data in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Outside of the 9 to 5

Anna continues the journey in her new book, where she details what’s needed to sustain your initial escape from the 9 to 5 in a guide to designing and building a profitable business that gives you more freedom, flexibility and fulfilment.

We will use and protect your data in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Privacy Policy

This privacy policy sets out how One Step Outside uses and protects any information that you give One Step Outside when you use this website (https://onestepoutside.com/).

One Step Outside is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Should we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified when using this website, then you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy statement.

One Step Outside may change this policy from time to time by updating this page. You should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes.

What information we collect and why

We only ever collect the information that we need in order to serve you.

Generally, this just means collecting your first name and email address that you enter, for example, when you request a resource, register for a webinar, or submit a message via a contact form.

If you are a paying customer, we also collect your billing information including your last name and your postal address.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymised string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Contact forms

We use Gravity Forms to allow you to contact us via the website. We will use the information you submit for the sole purpose of that specific form and will explicitly ask you to provide your consent to allow us to do so.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Advertising and Analytics

Google

We use Google Analytics to track and optimise performance on this site as well as embedding video content from YouTube, and this means that your web browser automatically sends certain information to Google. This includes the URL of the page that you’re visiting and your IP address. Google may also set cookies on your browser or read cookies that are already there. Apps that use Google advertising services also share information with Google, such as the name of the app and a unique identifier for advertising.

Google uses the information shared by sites and apps to deliver our services, maintain and improve them, develop new services, measure the effectiveness of advertising, protect against fraud and abuse and personalise content and ads that you see on Google and on our partners’ sites and apps. See their Privacy Policy to learn more about how they process data for each of these purposes, and their Advertising page for more about Google ads, how your information is used in the context of advertising and how long Google stores this information.

Facebook

We use the conversion tracking and custom audiences via the Facebook pixel on our website. This allows user behaviour to be tracked after they have been redirected to our website by clicking on a Facebook ad and enables us to measure the effectiveness of our Facebook ads. The data collected in this way is anonymous to us, i.e. we do not see the personal data of individual users. However, this data is stored and processed by Facebook, who may link this information to your Facebook account and also use it for its own promotional purposes, in accordance with Facebook’s Data Usage Policy https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/.

You can allow Facebook and its partners to place ads on and off Facebook. A cookie may also be stored on your computer for these purposes. You can revoke your permission directly on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/?entry_product=ad_settings_screen. For more guidance on opting out you can also consult http://www.aboutads.info/choices.

Who we share your data with

We use a number of third parties to provide us with services which are necessary to run our business or to assist us with running our business and who process your information for us on our behalf. These include a hosting and email provider (Siteground), mailing list provider (GetResponse), and a payment provider (Stripe).

Your information will be shared with these service providers only where necessary to enable us to run our business.

How long we maintain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognise and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website, we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

The main reason for collecting this information is to be able to send you resources, updates and, sometimes, information and products and services, as well as for internal record keeping.

The rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

How we protect your data

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure.

Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password that lets you access certain parts of our site, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential and we ask you not to share a password with anyone.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

Links to other websites

Our website contains links to other websites. This privacy policy only applies to this website so once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.

Changes to our privacy policy

We keep our privacy policy under regular review. Initially created on 18th November 2016, it was last updated on 23rd May 2018 to be compliant with GDPR.

Contact information

If you have any questions or concerns related to your privacy, you can get in touch here >>