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A poll was conducted in 2017 by Gallup, the global analytics firm about how engaged employees are in terms of their work. Gallup describes engaged employees as those who are involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to their work and workplace.
The poll uncovered that out of the world’s one billion full-time workers, only 15% of people are engaged at work. That means that an astronomical 85% of people are either bored or unhappy in their jobs.
But out of those disengaged workers, it's estimated only 5% actually will do what it takes to leave and pursue their passion in another field or to become their own boss by opening their own business or freelancing.
A lot of people talk about their plans to escape the rat race but only a few manage to make a plan and see it through to go against the grain and actually fly free of their gilded cage.
Why is it that some aspiring escapees don’t quite make get to the door?
From what I have seen there are things that hold people back from being able to achieve the new life they want, which are less about their 9 to 5 job and more about the business they are working towards.
So, what you can do to make sure you are part of that 5% who do make their dreams happen? Here is what I think..
PRIORITISE YOUR PASSION PROJECT
When you want to leave a full-time job to go and pursue your passion in some way beyond the four walls of the office, you have to shift your priorities. The new passion project you create to ensure you achieve your dream business and life has to come first. Beyond anything else in your life (except of course your loved ones). It won't come without sacrifice. You have to give up your weekends, cut back on hobbies and your social life, you have to save and cut back on treats and all this while basically working two jobs.
That is why your passion and purpose are so important, it has to be something more than just a desire to escape your job or to make money. In order to make it a priority and make your sacrifices worth it, you have to be so excited about what you are working towards, about what you will be building for yourself and your family you are willing to deal with the short-term restrictions You are doing it to do something you love, something you want more than anything and that has more meaning for you in life. Something that will fulfil you long term not just over the next year or so.
Your mind and actions need to shift from ‘if’ the business happens to ‘when’ it happens.
Your language to others needs to be the same. When not if.
You are telling yourself that this is happening, come what may, this is going to be.
If you don't believe that, if you can’t say this is happening, no one else will believe you.
And soon, you will stop believing in yourself and the plan will shrink until it disappears.
FIT YOUR JOB AROUND YOUR PASSION PROJECT, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND
What I’ve seen of people who don’t make their dream happen is they are too too ‘all in’ with their day jobs in terms of mindset. What I mean by that is they still are programmed into the mindset of being an employee of giving 110% to their job because that is what they have always strived for. They are just unable to get off that performance cycle, running on the hamster wheel at full pelt.
Now I’m not saying that you should give less than 100% to the job that is paying the bills until you escape. But that extra 10% that you are used to giving because you want to be seen as a superstar at your next performance evaluation, you need to step back from. You get your job done and you do it well but hold back from giving your absolute best, because that energy is needed to go on your new business plans.
So when a project comes along you would usually put your hand up for, or additional responsibility is potentially in the offing, look to avoid it. I’m not saying ground to a halt, just take your foot off the pedal slightly, making sure you do your job but little beyond that.
And look, if for some reason your business plans are halted beyond your control, you can put your foot back on the gas and go back to your natural performance level.
It’s a shift of your priorities away from your job and onto the new project that will be the foundation of the next part of your life. It’s another way to prove to yourself it’s happening.
THE TIME IS NEVER RIGHT
Another reason people don’t ever leave the 9-5 despite wanting to is that no matter how good their idea is, how much feedback they have that it is a viable business, they still wait for ‘the right time’. Every time they think about making the change, they will see some other thing blocking their way. It could be that it’s a bad time in their work, they are just going to get the team past a certain crisis, or it could be more global concerns like the economy, politics of the time, or other life drama and pressure. I can tell you now, that it’s never the right time. There will always be many reasons why it’s not the right time to leave a secure job to start a business or to go freelance. It does not mean you ignore those circumstances, you need to be very aware of what you are stepping out into, you can’t be an ostrich. But you prepare for the worst that you expect to have to deal with and you take the leap when the time is right for you, when you are ready when you have everything prepared.
FOCUS ON THE JOURNEY NOT THE DESTINATION
People who don’t end up leaving their day job often start by focusing on the wrong thing. They jump straight into planning the minutiae of the business they want and forget about the journey they will need to take to get there. They start thinking about building websites, social media or potential locations for their dream yurt park and wedding venue, forgetting about how they will actually arrange their lives so that it can happen.
Leaving a full-time office job takes thought and planning. You need a strategy, you need systems and processes and habits that will help you juggle your job and your passion project. You have to make room in your already busy life to actually work on your new business to bring it into being.
And it’s not just about the practical, it’s about the emotional, the mindset, and what it feels like to be going against the grain, to be throwing out the rule book you’ve been following so religiously. Becoming a business owner is way more than just setting yourself up in companies house or building a website or designing a logo, or choosing the perfect towels for your yoga retreat in Italy.
You don’t just leave as a 9-5 employee and become an entrepreneur overnight. It’s a process of de-programming years of thought patterns and behaviours. The sooner you start it, the better it will be when you do actually hand in your security pass and leave that office building for the last time.
START CALLING YOURSELF AN ENTREPRENEUR
I find that people seem to shy away from calling themselves an entrepreneur because they think it means someone with a million ideas and many businesses. A born business creator and owner. When actually entrepreneur means ‘an individual who creates and/or invests in one or more businesses, bearing most of the risks and enjoying most of the rewards’.
So if you are planning to create your own business, where you take the risk and get the reward, you my friend are an entrepreneur! And the sooner you take on that identity as your own, the better. Like I just said the sooner you start identifying as an entrepreneur the better because it takes a long time to free yourself from the identity of your job, your role, your corporate title which have been a central part of who you are for so long.
But by starting to call yourself an entrepreneur even just in your journal to yourself you will slowly start to believe it.
Entrepreneur, author and motivational speaker Ed Mylett says in his book ‘The Power Of One More’ that people who go for goals but don’t assume the new identity of what they are going for, end up regressing back to where they were before. Cooling things down to where they are comfortable. In other words, if you don’t believe you are what you are aiming for, you slip back to where you started. He gives an example of friend of his who loses weight through a lot of hard work but ends up putting it back on because he does not have the identity of a fit person.
So starting to have an entrepreneurial mindset before you leave will help you reach that goal. And it is something you have to have once you have your business, or you will skip back to where it feels safe, the title of employee who is just playing at having a business. And you could end up going back to being an employee because you never quite believed you were actually a business owner and entrepreneur.
THE BOTTOM LINE IS…
When you commit to leaving your day job, you have to stop seeing yourself as an employee. You are an aspiring entrepreneur or freelancer. Your job becomes your side-hustle and you are now boss of your own business and work. Just like you would put a lot of focus and work into a business as a side-hustle you continue to work hard in your job, but you leave that extra spark, that passion, for your main focus which is your new business. Because you must believe it will happen. You will make it happen.
By laying the groundwork, making sure you have chosen the business for you and planning out step by step how you will let go of your employee safety harness and step fully into your boots as an entrepreneur business owner, you will be in that 5% who make it happen.
Books and articles mentioned in this episode
Ed Mylett book The Power Of One More
