How To Quit Your Day Job and Start Working For Yourself

Being stuck at a job you don’t like can be a dreadful experience.  The feeling gets even worse when you are overwhelmed by debt and piles of unpaid bills.

The financial pressure starts to affect your relationships with your family and friends.

As a result, you end up having to choose whether you are going to look for a better job, go into business for yourself and become your own boss, or simply do nothing.

In this article, we are going to focus on the second option; transitioning from employee to working for yourself to achieve what I believe to be ultimate freedom.

Before you quit your day job to start working for yourself, there are a number of things you have to seriously think about.

The thought of leaving behind the ‘security’ of a job to go into the unknown can be very scary.

This is because everyone around you thinks you’re crazy and that you are making the biggest mistake of your life, especially those closest to you.

An inner conflict develops within you and if you are not clear on what you really want out of life, you get an overwhelming temptation to stick to the familiar, however bad it may be.

You have to understand that the final decision is yours, and since you have to live with the consequences, a lot of preparation has to go into the decision-making process.

Are you clear about why you are quitting your job?

If your only reason for quitting is because you believe your boss is a jerk, face it; there will always be jerks wherever you go.

Even in business you will find clients and suppliers who are jerks.

Most people who quit their jobs to start working for themselves make the grave mistake of becoming slaves to their own businesses, often for very little pay.

In a short while, they realize it was easier to work for someone else and get a regular paycheck irrespective of how much effort they put in.

If you are not clear about your ‘why’, you will find yourself lured back to where you don’t want to be.

When to quit your day job

Although there is never a right time to quit your job, it helps to be clear about when you intend to take the leap.

This will allow you to focus on the financial implications of your decision, most importantly how long you can survive without a paycheck before your business takes off.

Nevertheless, there are various ways in which you can transition from employee to business owner, the approach you choose will depend on your particular circumstances.

• Quit your day job after your side business income can meet your monthly expenses. In this situation, you will have to work on your business in your spare time.

This could be before you go to work in the morning, after work and on weekends.

You have to have a lot of patience to take this route and you also have to be certain that the cash flow of your business is predictable and reliable.

• Quit your day job and find something to do part-time that will take care of your  basic necessities while you build your business.

This route allows you to put more time into your business and can enable you to create a business around your desired lifestyle.

You could be an independent contractor.

• Quit your job and live off your savings until your business takes off.  By far the riskiest of the three strategies, this requires you to take a very calculated risk.

For starters, you have to know the number of months (or years) into the future that your savings can last you in the ordinary course of events.

This is because the payback period may be further into the future than what you had projected.

You can also apply a combination of the above strategies.

It all depends on how you calculate your risks.

The thought of quitting your job to work for yourself can be scary and exciting at the same time.

The real question you have to answer is whether you can handle the demands of being your own boss.