Why I Quit My Job....and Why You Should Too

This decision wasn’t easy, but it was one of the best decisions I have ever made. Have you ever felt stuck in the 9-5 grind, wondering if there is more to life? Well I’m here to tell you that there is.

We are all raised in a society which encourages the ‘blueprint life’ of go to school, get good grades, get a degree, get a job, be a good employee, work your way up the ladder, work for someone else for 40+ years, all so you can save for your retirement – it’s only at this point you can then have fun, travel the world, finally have time to explore your passions…..if you’re lucky enough to have made it that far!

In 2021, when the world was slowly beginning to open up following the crazy first year of the pandemic, a tragic event changed my life and way of thinking forever: my wife was diagnosed with incurable brain cancer – her prognosis, less than ideal. It was then I realised that working just so that we could have freedom and fun in retirement no longer made sense, because that time had been taken away from us.

This diagnosis reframed our life together in its entirety, we had always had conflicting shift patterns working in the military and the police – restricting the time we could spend together, we had never lived near to family – at one time living overseas for 18 months, limiting the quality time we could spend with them, and we lived to work, rather than worked to live – both of us being ambitious in our jobs wanting to work hard to climb the ladder. We realised things had to change, and it had to change now.

Once my wife had finished her cancer treatment, which included brain surgery, radiotherapy and nearly a year of chemotherapy, we started to think about what we really wanted our life to look like. We knew we wanted to be around children in our family and so made the decision to move the whole length of the country to be nearer to our nephews. We both changed jobs to work for our new local police service and fire brigade, and we awaited our started dates once we moved. My wife started her new job while I was still waiting for my recruitment process to be completed. While I waited I started helping my brother with his small local DIY/gardening business which he had set up the previous year, just to earn a bit of money in the meantime. It was at this point that everything started to make sense. It was the first time my wife and I had ever worked the same hours, meaning we had all evenings and weekends together, something we had never had in our 9 year relationship. This was everything!

The freedom of this job was something I had never experienced, I had never worked somewhere where I could have a direct say in how the business was run, what work to accept, what money to charge, what hours I wanted to work. Finally not having to just do as I was told by out-of-touch decision makers who were so far removed from the job that they didn’t understand the impact of those decisions.

It was also the first time that I was in position where the harder I worked the more I could earn. This concept was completely alien to me having always had a job with a salary. Have you ever been frustrated at the fact that you can work yourself into the ground and still just get the same old wage, sometimes while you colleague sits back and lets you do all the work, and yet you both earn the same amount (or sometimes they even earn more!)?

I was slowly moving away from the employee mindset and being inspired by the self-employed life. It didn’t take long before I realised that this was the kind of life I wanted to pursue. The kind of life that means I can decide how I want to live. The kind of life that makes sense for me and my wife to make the most of the time we have together.

So I quit! I turned down the permanent, secure job I was waiting to start and I’ve been self-employed and growing the business in partnership with my brother for 6 months now. Not only has it transformed my work life – it’s transformed my relationship and my mindset. My relationship has benefited with more quality time spent together and the headspace to truly appreciate what we have in each other. And my mindset has shifted from society’s ‘approved work-life blueprint’ to a new and inspired entrepreneurial mindset – the possibilities open to me now are, almost overwhelmingly, endless – but I’m excited to be on this journey of discovery. I'm not planning on doing this type of work forever, but this has been a pivotal move which has given me so much clarity about how I want to

An entrepreneur can be defined as “someone who starts and runs a business, taking on financial or personal risk in the process”. So while I haven’t necessarily found a million dollar idea, in this definition I would be actually be classed as entrepreneur. Since I was 13 years old I've had a range of small part-time jobs and salaried permanent positions working for all sorts of different companies and businesses. But that’s just it, I’ve always worked FOR someone else. Someone else’s company, someone else’s vision, someone else’s profits. Being self-employed or an entrepreneur was just never on my radar. But not anymore – here begins my entrepreneurial journey. And I encourage you to start yours.

I’m not saying that you should jump ship and quit your job immediately without considering your options. But I am strongly encouraging you to challenge your limiting beliefs by not thinking about how your life ‘should’ look, but instead considering how do you ‘want’ your life to look? Do you want to spend more time with your family and friends, spend more time travelling and seeing the world, or just free up some of your time to pursue that interest you’ve been wanting to do for years? It is totally possible to have more financial and time freedom, but it starts with a leap of faith to get there.

If you want to come along with me on this journey and explore the exciting world of entrepreneurship together, subscribe for future videos where I’ll be documenting my discoveries, learnings, successes and inevitable, but necessary, failures along the way. Are you ready to rewrite your story?