There are a lot of drivers pushing people out of their jobs right now, as well as pulling people towards a different way of working. And yet there are many reasons why you might not be taking that step. In fact, what is the first step? Discover the 10 steps you need to take to quit your job to work for yourself.
*Resources mentioned during the episode*
The Escaping the 9 to 5 Roadmap: Download this free roadmap to start planning your transition out of the ‘9 to 5’ and into working for yourself. www.onestepoutside.com/roadmap
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Quitting your job: A roadmap
Transcript:
Hello, hello, there. And welcome back to the Reimagining Success podcast. I’m your host, Anna Lundberg. And I want to already right away from the get-go, in case you stop listening for whatever reason, give you access to my new resource that I’ve created. So, it’s a roadmap for escaping the 9 to 5, the 10 steps for transitioning out of your corporate full-time role and into working for yourself. You can get the roadmap at onestepoutside.com/roadmap that’s onestepoutside.com/roadmap. So, especially, if you’re at the beginning of the process, I really hope this will be an invaluable resource to give you an indication at least of the kind of process. This will involve the different stages, those 10 steps. Of course, there are little mini steps in between, and it may not be a completely linear process. Especially if you go through lots of trial and error, you’re juggling a full-time job and everything else in your life and so on.
But I hope, again, it gives you an idea of the scope, the things you need to be considering, you should be considering, you could consider, and the order in which to take these steps. So, again, you can get the roadmap at onestepoutside.com for that roadmap. In the meantime, want to provide a bit more context to this, whether you’re new to the community, or you’ve been listening for a while, you can’t have avoided, I guess, hearing and seeing and experiencing the past year. And now in the last few months, the talk of this so-called great resignation, with more and more people considering leaving their comfortable, perhaps comfortable, secure careers behind despite all the economic uncertainty, to actually maybe pursue their passion, to change career direction, to start their own business.
And there are many different factors that are pushing people out of the 9:00 to 5:00 as it were, excessive workload, work, family conflict, maybe less of that job security than we had in the past.
Certainly our parents, grandparents who had this job for life, the pension, and so on, that’s no longer guaranteed or even desirable in my opinion. So, there are those factors pushing people out. In fact, I just had a comment on a YouTube video just today from someone saying the management in their workplace had handled the pandemic very badly, skills and staff shortages hadn’t been managed well, not knowing the context, but unfortunately that had led to a lot of burnout. And in this case, this person had chosen to leave that environment.
Now, that’s the negative side, I suppose, pushing people out. There are also many drivers putting people towards a better alternative and more hopeful future, craving more control over their future career direction, looking for that flexibility that maybe you’ve been experiencing during the pandemic and now you want more and more. And also longing to do more meaningful work that ultimately is making an impact in a different way perhaps than the job that you were doing previously or that you are doing now. So, if you are considering leaving your corporate job to work for yourself, then you can take comfort in the fact that you’re not alone. However, of course, at the same time, you may feel frustrated that you haven’t made it happen yet. And it’s not surprising, so please don’t give yourself a hard time. There are so many things that can get in the way.
You might stay where you are simply because you don’t know what you want to do instead. There’s one thing to know, “Hey, I don’t want to do this anymore. But then if not this, then what? What is the alternative to the 9:00 to 5:00? What could I possibly do? What does my skillset and background allow me to do? What do I want to do? What is even out there?” Right? So that’s a big question and big barrier. It’s also very exciting because you have all this possibility in front of you. You might also be discouraged, unfortunately, by other people’s negativity. People tend to project their own fears and insecurities. Well meaning friends and family are worried for your welfare ostensibly. And so they are themselves maybe worried about their own job security. And they also maybe have a hankering after a different kind of life and career. And the fact that you’re beginning to consider that could shake the ground on which their confidence and identity is built.
So, completely understandable that they’re projecting their fears and being negative. But, of course, that can really affect you and reinforce the fears you have internally as well. Speaking of fears and confidence, you might not even believe it’s possible, right?
There’s still this belief that, Hey, it’s more secure, more stable, more lucrative to have a job that is to take the risk of being an entrepreneur. And you might not believe that it’s possible to replace your full-time salary, maintain your lifestyle, your quality of life, while also, let’s face it, which we want to do as well, working few hours. So that’s a big belief that could be holding you back. Or also probably the case for most of you, you might not have the time or energy left at the end of the day, after having your full-time job, have to take care of the kids, after doing your hobbies. And if you get to do that, all the life admin, life admin is really draining me at the moment, and all the cleaning, and housework, and fitness and health, and cooking, and dating, and relationships and whatever else that you’re doing in your life, right?
So, it is hard to carve out that time. So, again, this resource, the roadmap, I can’t promise you that it’s going to give you that magical solution to that. Unfortunately, it’s never going to be that simple. But I do want to give you that overview of the most important things that you need to consider so that you can avoid some of those common pitfalls, and really start thinking practically about how you’re going to make this escape happen. Now, I should say, if you want to skip over this, or if you’ve been trying for a long time, you haven’t been able to make it happen, but of course, I’m here to help you do just that. If you know that you want to work with someone, if you’ve been part of my community for a while following me, then please, I really encourage you to book a call with me. You can book that at onestepoutside.com/call. Pretty simple.
You can DM me, PM me, send me a message on whatever social platform we’re connected, get in touch, let’s get on the phone, and let’s talk about how I can support you through that process because I’m here. That is why I’m here. That is what I do. And I’d love help you make this happen now. In the meantime, I want to talk you through the first few steps of this roadmap, and then hopefully you’ll be able to download that and get the detail and get the full steps. But I wanted to focus on the first one, which I think is really important. Now, funnily enough, when I got feedback from my community on this resource, I had wanted to start with this first step. I then actually decided, Hey, maybe I should start a bit more practically. Maybe we should look at finances first. But then thankfully I got the feedback that, “No, that comes later. You have to start with this first step.” And I’m really glad that that feedback came in because I 100% agree. It’s what I always say. I’ve done an episode on why this is the first step.
And so, without further ado, step one is to allow yourself the time and space to explore, to imagine, to fantasise, to dream, to understand who you are, what you want, what’s important, your values, to understand what you want from a big picture perspective, to understand your why, what is your bigger purpose that’s driving you? What are the things you love doing?
What are the things you’re great at, the things you care about? What’s your ikigai, your purpose. And this is big picture, philosophical, meaning of life kind of questions, but also right down to the nitty gritty of understanding, Hey, what do I want my day-to-day to look like? How is it going to look? How do I want it to look with all the other things? And really getting clear on that before you launch yourself into a new career. Right?
Understanding your push reasons for wanting to leave, understanding your pull reasons for being drawn toward this different kind of lifestyle, life and career. So, really before you even begin to filter your ideas, take action, narrow down your options, make any kind of decisions, give yourself space whether on holiday, or the weekend, over lunch time, in the evenings and the mornings, it can take hours, weeks, days, months, whatever you want it to take, allow yourself to expand your horizons, imagine the possibilities, dream big, and then later on we can narrow down the options and get more practical, right? So you can filter for feasibility later, but I don’t want you to start limiting yourself before you’ve even begun. So that’s step one, is to explore.
Step two then, is this more prosaic maths piece. Which is really getting a black on black and white, black on white, pen on paper, whatever you want to call a view of your financial situation. So that, let’s face it, we are going to leave behind what is most likely a pretty nice salary and generous benefits. And you may be depending on where you are in your life and career, you may be very much, or probably are very much tied up in the lifestyle that’s associated with that. I did an interview just a few weeks ago of somebody who was saying, “Hey, I’ve got three kids in private school now. So, I’m pretty tied into this particular income cycle.” So you have to be pretty damn sure that you can generate that income and support your family also with the business.
Now, of course, you can, but it can take time and that sets quite a high bar, versus, let’s say, as I was back in 2013, I was single, no ties. I was renting a cheap flat, I could get rid of that relatively easily. I had a lot of savings and so on, right? So, your financial situation is absolutely crucial to making this happen. It’s not that it will be impossible. It’s just that the timing, the scope, the criteria will vary depending on where you are. And that’s on two sides of the equation, right? It’s the salary that you need, the income. And that’s to do with your savings, your expenses, your lifestyle. And on the other side, it is the expenses, in fact, that you have. Now, initially, it’s your current expenses in terms of your, well, life expenses. I guess, your bills to pay, your groceries, your mortgage, rent and all these things. Right? Childcare and so on and school fees, maybe if it’s private school and so on, insurance and so on.
And then there are additional things that you’ll need to pay for that perhaps won’t be covered anymore, right? Because you no longer have the employer providing the insurance, the health care and so on, the gym membership, the pension and so on. And then you also have business expenses in terms of taxes and so on, right?
So, the actual number you need to be earning is going to be actually higher in terms of sales, revenue, gross numbers than your take-home salary at the moment in order to get that same take-home salary. So, not to get into the nitty-gritty of this, but just to say that this is absolutely step two after you’ve dreamed big. So I don’t want you to do this first, as I said. I want you to really dream big first, but then, Hey, let’s do a little check to see where we are. You could be pleasantly surprised, and if not, at least you’ve checked and you have a good idea now of the situation before you take some undue risk, which, of course, you don’t want to do.
So, that’s step two, do the math. And step three is to define your criteria. So, step one is big picture. I love this. I want to do that. I had this idea or these ideas. Now we’ve seen where we are financially. Now finances will be one of your criteria, but there may be other criteria, right? So the number of hours and days you want to work, the flexibility you want, the extent of travel, what are the really practical criteria, as well as some more subjective things like, “Hey, I want to feel aligned with the work I’m doing. I want to work with clients I really enjoy working with and other sort of more intuitive sense checks.” So, getting clear on what’s non-negotiable, what’s important [inaudible 00:11:23] could be compromised on, and what sort of are nice to have. That’s step three.
And I’m going to leave you with step four, because I think that’s a nice way to round this out. And then, again, you can get the full resource at onestepoutside.com/roadmap. Number four is to set a date and work backwards. Of course, the million dollar question is always, “Hey, should I start by building my business alongside my job? Should I quit, go all in?” And there’s no right or wrong answer here. Again, it depends on your own situation. Timing wise, I always say about a year is reasonable as a timeframe to go from, “Okay, I’m going to start getting clear on my idea. What am I going to do? Choose the business model, start building your personal brand, building your pipeline of clients and so on, and getting in those first clients.
And when I work with my clients, that’s the timeframe, especially if you’re just at the beginning of the journey again. If you’re further along, I have clients who already have their business. And it’s just a matter of ramping that up to the point that they feel confident enough to be able to have that pipeline of clients and to be able to let go of the full-time job. But if you haven’t got the business up and running yet a year, it seems like a long time, I know. But remember, we’re in it for the long haul. A year is not that much time if you break it down into how many hours you have a day, a week to work on this. You have a full-time job. You’re going to have ups and downs in your energy. Life happens, illness, holiday, and so on, right? So rather than say, “Hey, I’m going to do this in a month or six weeks or three months or whatever,” and then you fail, rather give yourself the full year and, Hey, if as sometimes happens, you do it more quickly, that’s amazing. That’s fantastic.
But if not, then we’ve got that buffer. We’ve got the stability and the time to be able to build the foundations over time and be able to sail off into sunset when we’re ready. Right? So setting a date, give yourself, “Hey, okay. By December, by this time next year.” In fact something a lot of my clients do is draught the resignation letter. You don’t have to send it, but put it up on your board. So you have that as a reminder for what you’re working towards. You can still a year from now decide, “Hey, I don’t want to quit my job.” Either this business isn’t working. I don’t love it. Or I’ve got an amazing role now in the office and actually I want to stay there forever. I never want to skip the 9:00 to 5:00. That’s fine. That’s your prerogative. But at least you have that timeframe. You have a deadline.
The risk is otherwise, that you’ll lose focus, you’ll procrastinate, and you just keep postponing indefinitely. Right? So setting a date and working backwards, giving yourself milestones, making sure you’re focusing on the right things, that’s number four. And I’ll stop there because I don’t want to give you the whole secret process, all the 10 steps right now. But again, you can get the resource at onestepoutside.com/roadmap. And if you listen for a few more minutes, you’ll also get an invitation to join me. Of course, again, if you know that you want to work with me, I’d love to have you join us in the business incubator to take that year together. It’s a year long incubator to take your idea or ideas, really evolve them, grow them, strengthen them, turn them into robust, viable business ideas. Clarify the business model, get that in place, build your personal brand and get those first clients coming in or enough clients coming in so that you can say, ciao Bella to your job, if that’s what you want to do.
Thanks so much for listening. Have a listen to that the next few minutes, and I will see you next week on the Reimagining Success podcast. Thanks so much for listening. Bye for now.
If you’re ready to start to reimagine what success could look like for you, here are some of the ways in which Anna can support you:
Get private mentoring for your business – Partnering with a business coach can help you see those blind spots and get both external accountability and expert guidance to take your business to where you want it to be. www.onestepoutside.com/freeconsultation
Get private career coaching – Individual coaching is fully tailored to your specific goals and desires so we can create the programme that works best for you, with the support that you need to move forwards. www.onestepoutside.com/claritycall
Grab a copy of Leaving the Corporate 9 to 5 – After interviewing 50 people who have left the corporate 9 to 5 to forge their own path, Anna has collected their stories in a book that will inspire you with the possibilities that are out there and reassure you that you’re not alone in looking for an alternative. www.leavingthecorporate9to5.com
Join the One Step Outside the 9 to 5 Business Incubator – This is your roadmap to transitioning from a corporate job into setting up a meaningful business that will bring you more freedom, flexibility and fulfilment outside of the corporate 9 to 5. www.onestepoutside.com/9to5
Level up with The Outsiders Business Accelerator – This is a mastermind for entrepreneurs, freelancers and small business owners who want to create a long-term sustainable brand and business. www.onestepoutside.com/accelerate
