It’s near the end of the last quarter, and typically people begin to fret in the realization that they haven’t met their goals. Let’s say their goal was to start a new business, they may decide to spontaneously quit their 9-5 job.
If this is you, don’t worry. Before you jump off into the deep end, let’s review the five important things you need to establish before you quit your 9-5. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with quitting but decisions deserve exploration.
Track Expenses
Like others, I sang the same “I hate my job” song when I quit my 1st job as a therapist. I had no idea what implications would occur. I was more than ready to live a life I enjoyed but the life I enjoyed required an income.
Whether you are taking a break from the working world or deciding to start your own business, money is essential to quitting. As your consistent income will stop for a while.
So what does this mean?
It means that you need to have a strategy on how you will survive in the interim. Before you quit open a new bank account and put at least 5% or more of your current pay into this account every pay period.
This account should NOT BE TOUCHED until you quit your job. When you have saved up at least 6 months worth of living accommodations, you should feel more comfortable to chuck up the deuces to your employers!
People usually neglect the reality of the repercussions of quitting. This is something I wish I knew before I quit my first 9-5 job. I knew I wanted to build my business, but I didn’t think about how I would sustain life. What if I needed an impromptu health care appointment, or if the business I was building needed to be scaled? These were all conditions that needed to be considered.
A good starting point to tracking how much you need to save for your BIG day off is keeping a lengthy account of your expenses. I like using phone apps like spend tracker and personalized finance spreadsheets.
Prepare Your Mind
In addition to tracking your expenses, you have to envision your future. I had to mentally prepare myself for both the challenges I was going to face and how I was going to defeat them. Your mind is the strongest tool you have in life, so strengthening your mindset will be an asset as you prepare to move on.
You may be the primary breadwinner in your family and as you shift gears into your new reality your mind will automatically begin to analyze the hardships in the future. Most of us our natural problem solvers, so we typically ruminate on problems before we get to solutions.
How do you re-wire your brain?
Each day take time to visualize the person you want to be once you’ve quit your job. You don’t visualize the challenges but the successes. This was truly a hard concept for me to grasp at first, but The Secret really helped.
This book, now a movie on Netflix, explained that quitting my 9-5 was OKAY! It helped me realize the potential and possibilities I had inside of me and how I could really manifest my dreams.
I won’t lie, sometimes I do find myself re-trapped in my self-defeating thoughts and re-thinking that my old 9-5 is an option. When I get to this place I just pull up quick glimpses of the film or the chapters in The Secret and helps me realign my values and reminds me of the reasons I quit in the first place.
Utilize 9-5 Strategies
Most people quit their 9-5 jobs because they want to live a life without restrictions. Truth be told, your 9-5 gave you discipline. You had to be somewhere at a certain time, you had to attend meetings and you had to meet deadlines. The same discipline applies to your life outside of a 9-5. If you are choosing to own your own business, still set a schedule for yourself that you will abide by in order to still continue with success and accomplishments.
My first week fresh out of my 9-5, I did absolutely nothing.
My second week out of my 9-5 I binged watched Netflix and did nothing!
Can you guess what my third week looked like?
Yes, the absolute exact same!
It wasn’t until a month after my official quit date, where I realized that I needed to actually do something with my life. This is when my push kicked in and I decided to blog more frequently and plan my income strategies. I honestly and truly could not have done this without a planner.
Plan Accordingly
The first planner I ever purchased which I will continue to adore is my Erin Corden planner. It not only organized my day to day life, but my monthly goals, and my travel trips!
After I realized the luxuries of a planner, I decided to create my own blogging planner, where I could plan exactly what I would blog about for 30 days, which in turn made me 4 months worth of content (depending on blog frequency) within 30 minutes.
Just because I was no longer in a 9-5 didn’t mean I couldn’t follow a schedule. I just wasn’t privy to the fact that life outside of corporate building needed structure. Utilize and adapt your time management strategies from your 9-5 in your life after being an employee.
It’s Okay to Start Over
Time and time again we are given a number of opportunities in life because the universe/God is just waiting to see what we will do with them.
If you’re currently in your 9-5 job and you’re fretting because you’re not sure what life will be once you quit, stop worrying! It’s always ok to start over. Your job is only one component of your life, and even if life after a conventional job doesn’t seem to fit the exact mould you wanted, it’s okay to start over and try again.
Everything in life is temporary. We have to stop thinking that every decision we make is permanent. Maybe you’re fearful of what will happen if you don’t succeed without a 9-5.
If you are stuck in this “analytical/practical” mindset, then buckle up your pants and ask for your job back.
Don’t be too prideful but instead acknowledge the fact that you took a chance and followed your heart.
Take a chance, fulfil your desires and watch your life become fruitful. Every second is a new chance to manifest a new reality.
Leave a Reply