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The Day I Decided to Quit my Job

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I quit my job. It all came down to one decision. One decision I’d spent years building up to.

The day I finally decided to quit my job – one decision completely changed the course of my life, as decisions tend to do. But not all decisions are created equal. Some set off a small shift in your day-to-day life, others set off a series of events which are much bigger than you ever expected, hoped or dreamed. (More here).

I’d been considering leaving my job for years. It wasn’t making me happy, it didn’t feel like a right fit after a decade of hard work. The main reason I hadn’t left was that I wasn’t sure what to move on to do.

I started to seriously consider what the reality of quitting my job might mean. With no specific plan for what to do next, could this be an option? Make the break, and work out what to do next with a clearer mind?

I’d need to make money somehow. I had a mortgage and bills to pay.

I started reading blogposts and articles and books about what to do when you’re considering quitting a job. (Like this and this). I realised that setting myself up with some kind of extra income would help with the massive fear of not having a regular salary for a period of time.

The least I could do would be to investigate this – rather than ploughing through unexciting job ads, I could look into how to support myself in other ways. Could I find a way to survive whilst exploring new ideas and options  and working out what to do next?

The most attractive option was something a friend of mine had told me about a while before – she was freelancing for a translation company – quality checking and finalising translations. She could work when she liked, as much as she liked, from home or wherever she happened to be.

She thought I had the qualifications and experience to do the same. So she passed on a contact at the company, I got in touch, filled in some application forms, did a series of tests, passed, and was accepted onto their books.

Whoo! I now had a legitimate way of making money if I left my job! It would be ad  hoc, with no guarantee of work or monthly income, but it was something.

I sensed freedom.

I also knew that I could tutor students in English and touch-typing, something both my parents did in their retirement. Again, I had the qualifications and experience to do this. And I could earn a good rate of pay from it. Again – no guarantees, but money, and more freedom.

As I started to really consider my options, I started to think about my skills in a different way, not only concentrating on what I was doing every day in my current job, but on all the skills I had at my disposal.

What could I possibly do to make money? I wasn’t concentrating on the one next big important role. I wasn’t thinking about my career ladder, the next job title. It was back to basics, what can I do, can I make money from it, could I enjoy spending my time doing it?

I ended up doing various things to keep afloat – read more here.

So that day when I decided to quit my job, it wasn’t on a whim. This wasn’t a total leap into the unknown. It certainly wasn’t a rash, reactive decision.

It felt a bit like it at the time. One day I just had enough, and speaking to my parents, I said, “I think I need to do this”.

But it was actually a decision based on many hours deliberating, dreaming, worrying, analysing, planning. I’d gathered the evidence that it might be a realistic solution for me. I’d gathered enough evidence to give me the confidence to do it.

I can’t recommend quitting your job without having lined up the next one. It is a big risk. For some people this will work out fine, others need more security and certainty.

What I can recommend though, is starting to properly look at different ways of making money through the skills and experience you already have.  Things you probably haven’t yet considered.

Imagine for the next 6 months you won’t be doing your current job.

You need to make money. What can you do? If you had to come up with some ideas, what would you do?

Is there something you’ve always had a bit of an interest in but not really pursued? For me at that time it was the translation work. Is there a way you could try it out on the side? Set up on a freelance website like UpWork and do a couple of hours a week? Start a side project? Writing, consulting, mentoring, volunteering?

Could you make the break slowly, bit by bit, easing yourself into a new industry, a new way of working, a new way of seeing things?

Get in touch with me here if you’d like me to help you with your career transition.

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Best 6 books to help with career change

  1. The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss

    Reading this book, for the first time in my life I started to consider a life where you don’t have to put up with being chained to a desk doing work you don’t want to do.

    I was going through a particularly bad patch in my previous job, in around 2007. At this time, my favourite running joke with a friend on my team was that I was digging an escape tunnel under my desk, à la The Shawshank Redemption.

    Just about every lunch break I’d go for a walk, feeling desperate, head to the nearby Waterstone’s bookshop on Oxford Street, and scan through the books to somehow try to find answers to the questions I had whirling around in my head. What am I doing with my life? Why do I feel miserable? What can I do to make it better? The title jumped off the shelf at me.

    I’d pop in again and again to read a bit more each day. One day I finally made the purchase – one of the best decisions I’ve made. I still refer to this book, a decade later.

    Tim was one of the first to write about ‘lifestyle design’, shunning the typical idea of working 9-5 in an office doing a job you don’t like and waiting until you retire to do all the fun stuff you dream of – and instead finding ways to incorporate these things (learning, travel, adventure, entrepreneurship) into your present day.

    How did it help me?

    It inspired me to dream of a life where I’m not wishing my time away until my next holiday, where I decide what I want to do, how I want to live my life, and then find a way to make that a reality. To not put off dreams until later in life, dreams such as living abroad and learning a new language. I’d previously lived in France, and promised myself that I’d live abroad again, one day. See what happened here.

    Tim has written several other books, all great, but this is definitely my favourite. He also has an amazing podcast, the Tim Ferriss Show, where he interviews seriously impressive guests (Tony Robbins, Richard Branson, Seth Godin) about their ‘tactics, tools and routines’ for being mega successful – I’m obsessed.

  2. How To Stop Worrying And Start Living by Dale Carnegie

    King of self-help, Dale Carnegie, wrote back in the 40s and 50s about implementing small habits and behaviours that improve your life. As someone who had always considered myself ‘a worrier’, this is a book I looked to for reassurance. (I found it on my parent’s bookshelf one day.) Perfect title! It was exactly what I needed at the time, constantly worrying about what I was doing with my life and not knowing what to do about it.

    In this book Dale teaches us how to face worry head on, providing different techniques for handling it. For example focussing on today’s actions rather than worrying about tomorrow’s; analysing your worry by getting all your facts together about a situation, writing them down, then analysing them impartially, coming up with several solutions, and then making a clear decision and taking action.

    How did it help me?

    Amongst many other tips he gave me the realisation that your optimum state should be to be as relaxed and calm as a sleeping kitten. Feeling tired, tense, and anxious, is a habit. Relaxing is a habit.

    Imagine picking up a sleeping kitten, they’re all soft and floppy. Like a crumpled sock. That’s how your body should feel. Soft, relaxed, calm. First reading this at a time when my back and neck were constantly tense and uncomfortable due to feeling stressed and sitting at a computer screen all day, this was a revelation. And something I try to remember.

  3. Be Your Own Life Coach by Fiona Harrold

    I also found this book on a bookshelf at my Mum and Dad’s, I still have no idea how it got there. The cover is kind of cheesy. But I love it. It’s full of little pink post-it notes highlighting the pages I like to refer to.

    Fiona starts off talking about not going through your life with regrets, about doing the things you dream of. She talks about how your beliefs and outlook effect the rest of your life, and you need to make subtle shifts in your thinking if you want to make changes. It’s all about creating your ideal life, and building your confidence to make it happen.

    Fiona encourages you to take control of your life, don’t put up with a so-so life, strive for more. It’s as though you have this person to hold your hand saying, “You can do this. You are absolutely equipped to deal with anything that comes your way.”

    How did it help me?

    It’s a really reassuring read, with case studies showing how people have transformed their lives by learning to follow their intuition, believe in themselves, and give something new a try. It encouraged me to stop making excuses and aim to live the life I want. The focus on building self-reliance and self-worth is inspiring, especially as someone who had lost confidence in my abilities.

  4. Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers

    This is one of those books I’d pick up in the library when I was feeling totally lost and needed all the help and reassurance I could get.

    It’s all about taking action to get rid of the feeling of fear, rather than letting it fester and grow. Everyone’s scared of different things, all the time, and that’s not going to change. But you can practise facing the fear, doing whatever it is you are scared of that is stopping you from living your life as you want to.

    It’s like building a muscle, the more often you face your fears, the easier it gets. You get used to getting out of your comfort zone, and dealing with whatever comes your way. 

    How did it help me?

    The stand-out point for me is on tackling indecision and paralysis. When making a decision, you can take path A or path B – both are the best path to take. You’ll never be able to 100% predict the outcome. Deliberating, hesitating, over-analysing and not making a decision, all comes down to fear, and stopping yourself from taking action.

    Take path A and great things can happen. Take B and great things can happen. There is no wrong decision. Even if the path you take doesn’t pan out as you had hoped, you can correct your path as you go.

  5.  Working Identity by Herminia Ibarra

    I read this book around the time I left my previous job. The book focuses on the commonalities will all have in career change.

    You will go through a potentially tricky transition period. Read more about it here.

    You don’t have to immediately move on to the job you’ll have for the rest of your life. Take the pressure off.

    Test the next thing out, staying open-minded. It’s all part of the process.

    You’re shedding the skin of your previous work identity, maybe you’ll have to shed another one before you find something that fits.

    How did it help me?

    It was comforting reading about high achieving MBA types and rather than feeling inferior, taking comfort that we’re all the same, we all go through the same issues.

    Herminia’s words are encouraging; if you change career there will be a transitional period, it won’t always be smooth, but if you can accept that and just keep moving forwards, you’ll do ok.

  6. This Year Will Be Different by Monika Kanokova

    I read this book a few months after I had left my job of 10 years and was figuring out what I wanted to do next. One thing I knew was that I wanted to work differently. I didn’t want to work in a corporate environment or in a big office anymore. And  I wanted to do work I was actually interested in.

    I love this book as it’s basically a series of case studies where the author interviews interesting women who are doing interesting work, mainly freelance or have started their own businesses.

    The ones that really caught my eye were location independent. As someone who loves languages and has lived abroad before, I found this book so inspiring, reading about women from around the world, living where they want, finding a way in which to work to support this.

    To read the details of how someone makes this kind of lifestyle work for them was truly inspiring. And surprise surprise, my work is now location independent, working either from home, a co-work space, cafes or at my parent’s when I’m back to the UK visiting.

    How did it help me?

    Reading about people who are living their lives in a way that interested me was an eye-opener. Having spent my whole working life up until then working in offices, this opened up a world of different possibilities.

    I started to imagine myself doing something similar. From there, I started to figure out how I could do the same, and look out for opportunities which would allow me to live in this way. Seeing what is possible is the first step.

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    If you’d like my help, book in a coaching session with me here: Contact Me

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