Quit your job!

Walk out swinging your hips while Aretha Franklin screams R.E.S.P.E.C.T, and your colleagues look on in admiration.

Isn’t that the only way to proper fulfilment?  Leaving your 9-5 to work for yourself doing something you love.  Open a Surf School, become a writer, sell stuff online, or get your arse on stage where you’ve always felt alive!

Follow your dreams.

As someone who’s done this, I will tell you it’s a buzz!   I was happy in my executive career, but if I’d known the joy I’d feel spending my days doing what I adore, I’d have done it sooner.  Real joy!  Like, click your heels and do a little dance levels of chuffed-ness.

 

But, working for yourself is not the only way to a more fulfilling life and there are some downsides. 

The heal clicking stops when:

• • Your cashflow is uncertain and unpredictable
  • You have to learn how to perform every task yourself including sorting out your own Tech issues
  • You’re sick and you don’t get paid
  • Holidays…ditto
  • Maternity/Paternity…ditto

 

In the beginning, and until you’ve reached a certain level of success you need a strong stomach, but once you’ve made your own business work, you will never go back.

The challenges are bigger and impact you personally and directly, but nothing beats the exhilaration of waking up every day to work on something you’re mad passionate about.  If you can get yourself comfortable with uncertainty, rejection, mistakes and failure, I’d say go for it.

But, perhaps for these reasons and other reasons of your own, you don’t want to run your own business.  That’s ok.  There are so many upsides to working for a company.  I loved so many things about my leadership career:

• • Working with great people
  • Doing interesting work
  • Problems to solve, things to improve
  • The buzz of the annual conference
  • Team Away Days
  • My lifestyle
  • And, although I took it for granted at the time, predictable income, private health, stock and an annual bonus.

If you’re working for a company right now and you don’t want that to change, but:

• • You’re not 100% fulfilled
  • You have other things you want to do
  • You have passions outside of work
  • You want more diversity in your life
  • You want to give back in a more meaningful away

 

What’s the answer?

You don’t have to quit your job, but you do have to turn and do what you love.  Just because you can’t do the thing full time, or earn a living from it (right now), is not a reason not to do it.

Turn and do what you love.  Do it now.  Don’t wait!

1. 1. Decide the `other thing’ you want to do and commit to making it happen (let’s call it your passion project).
   2. Make a committed decision that you’re going to do it and cut off from any possibility (don’t allow doubt or excuses to creep in).
   3. Decide which hour(s) of the day you’ll work on your passion project.
   4. Be disciplined and persistent in your work.
   5. Write down 6 actions you must take to succeed and put them in order of importance.  Then, work on number 1 until it is complete or you’ve taken it as far as you can.  This is an exercise in focus and momentum.  Do not dabble in items 2-5.  Stay focused!
   6. Manage your mindset and fuel your desire by bringing your project to life in your imagination every morning and every evening.
   7. See problems as opportunities to learn and remain 100% solution focused.
   8. If you make a mistake celebrate the gift of growth and learning.

 

“A Person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein

 

Don’t make excuses!  

We’re conditioned to spend our days between work and distractions like TV, devices, social media, consuming food and drink.  If you want a joyous and fulfilling life, you have to be willing to relinquish the daily trivia that will suck your time and keep you from your true passions.

Be brutal with yourself.

Be honest with yourself.

No time?  Take inventory of how you spend your time.  Outside your day job, it’s your choice how you spend it, so invest it well and you will be rewarded.

If you do what it takes, for as long as it takes, you will succeed.  Hold the faith.  If your passion project came from inside of you, it’s meant for you and you will have it.

I turned to do what I love when I started writing online articles, launched my business, started taking breaks in the countryside  alone, started Open Water Swimming.  In my experience, most of the things that bring us happiness and meaning are easier to reach than we think and don’t require us to quit our job or turn our life upside down.

It starts with a few simple questions.  What do I want?  How do I want to spend my time?  What could I do now?

I have a list and I’m enjoying working living through it.  Grow my business, travel with my family, start cycling, more hiking and wild camping, write my book….

It’s an exciting future don’t you think!

R.E.S.P.E.C.T!