How do you quit your job and follow your dreams?
If you’re wondering how to quit your job and follow your dreams, follow these steps:
⇒ Make sure you’re doing so for the right reasons. Quitting your job is no joke, and it’s not something you do because it sounds cool. Quitting your job to follow your dreams means you’ve got this inner dialogue you can’t shake, and you know you’re meant to do something different (and BIG!).
⇒ Prepare first. Quitting your job means quitting your income, maintenance and security. Make sure you have a serious amount of dough saved up. How much? Enough for you to follow your dream and establish yourself so that your dreams pays the bills. For me, that number was 2 years of bills saved up.
⇒ Leave gracefully and on good terms. Let people know if you want that you’re planning on doing something huge while you’re gone.
⇒ Master plan and don’t mess around. You’ve quit your job, but that doesn’t make you jobless. Your new job is to work on your dream 8 hours a day.
How To Know If You Should Quit Your Job
1. You Chose to Read this Post. Let’s face it, if you clicked on this post, you’re probably not satisfied where you are. If you were completely satisfied at your current job, you would have seen the link for this post and immediately thought “Not for me, move on…”.
If you found yourself curious about what was contained here (maybe you subconsciously wanted a quick way out) then there’s a good chance you should quit your job and follow your dreams.
2. Your job lacks meaning for you. Everyone who reads my stuff knows one thing: I’ve got super strong opinions. I’ve experienced first hand that a life fully optimized can be a serious blessing. It really is possible to tap dance out of bed and be thrilled about what you do.
Not if you’re working the wrong job though, and it’s different for everyone. I know people who are super happy McDonald’s managers and depressed school principles. It’s an individual thing. But if you feel like your job is sucking the soul right out of you, or like there’s a whole in your life because of it, you might wanna look into finding something more fulfilling to do with your life!
3. You have a BIG DREAM that you can’t shake off. I always wanted to be a teacher of some kind. I wanted to be a huge teacher who taught information I was seriously into. I wanted millions of people to read my stuff and feel free to move forward in a new direction because of it. For years I told myself that could never happen, but, no matter where I was, I couldn’t shake that dream.
[content_container max_width=’500′ align=’center’]It got to the point where I realized: If I don’t do this, it’s just going to haunt me for the rest of my life. Trying and failing would be a better option than staying here dissatisfied.[/content_container]I had warehouse jobs back then, and I actually liked them, but I felt I was meant to be doing something different.
If you have that feeling, it’ll never leave. It’s a sure sign that you need to quit your job and follow your dreams!
What To Do Before You Quit Your Job
Be a smart person. The worst thing you could do is leave this post super thrilled about forging a new path for yourself, but do so ill prepared. There are a few things you wanna take care of first so you don’t fall on your face and fail miserably.
1. Save your money. You have bills to pay right? So did I. If you’re a millennial like me, you probably have school debt, and car payments, rent, etc…The more cushion you have in your life the less stress you’ll have once you finally quit.
[content_container max_width=’500′ align=’center’]I would give you a set amount, but I don’t think that makes sense because your situation is individual and different from mine. The ideal thing for you to do would be to figure out how long it’s gonna take for your “dream” to pay the bills. Then, save up at least that much money (maybe a little more).[/content_container]I’ve always been good at saving money, so I made sure I had 2 years of bill money saved up. That gave me 2 years to make it blogging or bust. Money running out is actually a good incentive. Depends on how you look at it!
2. Simplify your life. How do you save up 2 years of bill money? I know, you might have kids, loans, mortgage, rent, debt, credit cards etc…But if this is gonna work, you’ll have to learn the word sacrifice.
- Simplify your diet, buy cheaper food.
- Figure out a way to pay less rent.
- Stop eating out, stop wasting money.
- Download mint on your phone to see where you’re spending money on useless crap like gas station food.
Figure out how to simplify your life so you can save more money to provide for yourself while you’re working on your dream.
3. Prepare for an Ass-kicking. Mentally doing something like this can be draining. It was for me. There’s the fear of letting go of your safety net (your income), the doubt that naturally comes when you make a change like this, the disbelief of your friends and family etc…
All that is normal and it’s something you might have to go through. These are symptoms you’ll experience when you make any change in life of this magnitude. They’re not individual to this, and they’re certainly not a reason for you to feel like you did the wrong thing.
4. Forgive your haters ahead of time. There’s a high likelihood that those closest to you will think you’re crazy. I actually had a HUGE fight with a family member when I chose to make this transition in my life, and it was so huge that we didn’t talk or see each other for a year.
Keep in mind that people will give you a hard time for a few reasons:
- They don’t believe in your dream
- They think you’re wasting your time
- Their view of what’s possible is different from yours
- They’re trying to protect you from making a big mistake
These are real issues in their minds, and sometimes our friends and family will try to “save us” from making a huge mistake in our lives. They’re doing this because they care for you, but you know a little more about yourself, your needs and what’s possible for you, so keep going as planned even though there might be pressure from them.
As long as you prepare, and have a serious plan behind you, this risk is doable.
The other opposition you’ll come up against is people who purposely try to bring you down for following your dreams. These are called haters, and F$%k em!
They don’t believe in themselves, so they can’t believe in anything (including you!). Ditch em.
5. Make the mental switch. You’re actually about to do this. It’s like going off the high dive for the first time. It doesn’t look that bad from the side of the pool, but now that you’re up here… “MAN, THIS LOOKS REALLY HIGH UP!”
Calm down, a million people have taken this dive before you, and a million will come after you. The water is deep enough, chill out, take a deep breath and jump. Easy.
6. Decide, and go! You felt the inner yearning to forge a new path for yourself. You’ve prepared, done a ton of research, created your own master plan, saved up enough money and resources, removed all the trash from your life that will get in the way, mentally prepared yourself for the fear and the haters…now you’re ready to go.
This is the point where: you know quitting is the right move for you to make, you’re prepared to handle whatever comes, you’ve cushioned your fall so nothing catastrophic occurs in your life, and it’s go time.
Quit your job with grace, let who cares know what you’re doing & make the move!
How To Quit Your Job
I’m always in favor leaving a situation such that you can return if necessary. Put in your two weeks, have the conversations you need to have, let your boss know it’s nothing personal but you feel this deep need to do something else and that’s your plan now.
[content_container max_width=’500′ align=’center’]Get people’s support if you can, do the professional thing and help them find someone to replace you if that’s appropriate, but for the most part, just quit. Quit, and quit gracefully. [/content_container]I’m a pretty “all in” kind of person, but a smart move would be to have a heart to heart with your superiors and ask if you can return if things don’t work out. You’ll have to judge your situation and see if that’s viable. If your boss is an orc, that might not be an option, but if your boss is more like a mentor to you (or respects you at all) you could pursue this as an additional safety net.
But if you know it’s time to create something wonderful from nothing, you know deep inside that there’s no turning back. So don’t.
What To Expect When You Quit Your Job
- People who find out will either think it’s cool or crazy
- You might get backlash from people who think you’re making a big mistake
- Non-believers will nay say and do their haters gonna hate stuff
- You’ll get the shakes and feel terrified at moments
- You’ll battle confidence issues, and fear
For the record, none of the above listed symptoms are reasons to quit, they’re signs you’re about to hit a vein full of gold.
Remember: if you put in the preparation beforehand, and YOU KNOW internally that this is the right move for you, these symptoms are just a part of the journey. Push through anyway.
What Happens After You Quit Your Job To Follow Your Dreams?
Congratulations, but it’s not over yet. You still have a serious jambalaya to make before the party gets here!
- You’re not on vacation
- This isn’t time off
- You’re not gonna wake up tomorrow and relax.
Remember when I told you to create a master plan before you quit? That master plan should have a timeline on it. How long is this dream of yours gonna take to cook up?
You should have some goals you need to meet as well. There’s progress to be made, and you should already have this outlined before leaving your job.
- A yearly amount of progress you need to make
- Monthly objectives to reach that goal
- Weekly benchmarks to meet your monthly objectives
- Daily to do lists to keep you on track for serious results each week
This isn’t time to relax, it’s time to get to work. Your job is now to follow your dreams, and get to the point where it maintains you in a substantial way. That’s your 40 hours a week!
Wake up tomorrow bright and early and get started creating your amazing dream.
