I QUIT My Job In A Recession… am I going to regret this?
It’s not clickbait… I quit my job in the middle of a recession, and with how things are going with the economy coming up, it’s going to be crazy. But I’m taking a leap of faith, and I quit my job.
I have been at my company which is a Fortune 500 company, for almost seven years now, and I quit. I realized that this company doesn’t align with my values; it doesn’t align with where I want my life to progress and where I want my life to take me. I’m going all-in on my business; I’m going all in on YouTube; I’m going all in on my blog, courses, and online entrepreneurship, which is crazy!!
There were a lot of assumptions at my job that I just quit because I had a daughter, but that is not the case. I have been contemplating leaving for about a year-and-a-half now, and finally, I was like, “you know what? Now it’s the time; let’s just do it and rip the Band-Aid off”.
What led me to quit my job?
What really sparked me to quit my job was a quote that I heard about two years ago, it hit home, and it was a huge aha moment.
I’ve been saying that I was building the foundation of my business with blogging and YouTube since I started my YouTube channel six years ago and went all-in so that I could quit my job one day and do my business full time. This is the quote that really inspired me and really was a significant driving force for the last two years of my business.
Wow! That hits home. This was precisely how I felt.
So often, as employees, we get sucked into that guaranteed salary, the guaranteed paycheck. BUT there is the ceiling.
With entrepreneurship, there is NO CEILING, meaning you can make any amount of money. But there is no guarantee you will be successful and get a paycheck every month.
That is scary but also really exciting.
At my day job, I started at about $38,000 a year salary, the max I could ever make in my role without going into leadership was about $60,000 a year, and when I quit after almost seven years, I was making about $55,000 a year.
This year as an entrepreneur, I could easily double that.
My day job is also not my passion anymore. My passion is helping you guys. My passion is building an online community building and the relationships that I have with you guys. I have countless emails, countless DM’s, and countless messages saying:
Kelly, you explained this in a way no one ever explained it to me before. It gave me an aha moment. You motivated me when I wanted to spend money. When I wanted to give up, and when I wanted to throw in the towel, I watched your videos, and they inspired me to keep going.
That is incredible! What I’m doing online matters to guys; that’s amazing, that inspires me so much, and that means the world to me that I get to now stay home and do what I love.
Can I afford to quit my job?
Times are scary right now with the economy and some may say this is the worst time to quit my job.
Yes, the economy is not doing well right now, but my husband and I have put our financial foundation in place over the last several years so we can live very comfortably on his salary and what I currently make in my business.
We also have a solid emergency fund and are still putting money away into savings and investments. We’re not going to be living paycheck-to-paycheck.
But this will be a big hit financially, losing a $55,000 a year salary plus adding Peyton and me onto my husband’s insurance which will be an extra $500 a month.
I can help you do this too.
If you’re curious about what I’m doing and how I’ve been able to build this business, I created a course that lays it all out for you called Dreamer to Profitable.
During the pandemic, I received many messages from people in desperate need of making money from home and wanting to know how I do what I do.
I decided to sit down and map out everything I’ve done, how I came up with my niche, how I have multiple streams of income, how taxes work, and everything no one talks about. I genuinely wish this course was around when I first started; I would’ve grown my business so much faster!
In honor of quitting my job, I’m running a HUGE SALE! IF you use code QUIT50 at checkout, you will receive $50 off.
I also have an additional add-on, a membership which is only $19 a month (it should really be $50 a month); it gives you a full portal of lessons in categories, new lessons every week, Zoom Q&A calls, co-working sessions, private Facebook group, and new things will be added soon!
If you want to take your entrepreneurship journey to the next level. If you want to be a digital entrepreneur, someone making money online, then Dreamer To Profitable will help you do that!
Did Peyton play a role in me quitting?
Yes, my daughter did play a part in me quitting my job. In the fact of “mom brain” is real! And I talked to Allison from Inspired Budget, and she told me:
Kelly, you have three major things going on in your life:
- You work full time
- You have a full-time business
- You’re a mom full time
You can’t do all three successfully; one is going to fail.
She was so right.
Before I had Peyton, I would work my business on my lunch break or after work; but since having Peyton, I had NO mental energy for that.
On my lunch break, I just needed a mental break and would take a nap or watch a show to check out for a few minutes. Then after work, I was so mentally drained I could barely clean my house or cook dinner; there was no way I could work on my business.
I saw the numbers dropping quickly, and I needed to do something about it.
Almost every night, I go for a walk with my friend, Noor, and sometimes one of her golden pups.
When I was thinking about quitting my job, I talked to Noor about it, and she sent me the commencement speech by Shonda Rhimes. Something in that speech REALLY hit me hard:
As someone who constantly gets asked, ‘How do you do it all?’ … The answer is this. I don’t. Whenever you see me succeeding in one area of my life, that almost certainly means I am failing in another area of my life. If I am killing it on a Scandal script for work, I am probably missing bath and story time at home. If I’m at home sewing Halloween costumes, I’m probably blowing off a rewrite I was supposed to turn in. If I am accepting a prestigious award, I am missing my baby’s first swim lesson. … If I am succeeding at one, I am evidently failing at another.
This hit me HARD.
This is the same thing with chasing your dreams and how I felt at work. Not necessarily trading dollars for hours like she was talking about but with my mental energy.
If I killed it on a work project, then that meant I had no creativity left to write a blog post or script a video.
What do I want my life to look like?
When I was thinking about quitting my job about a year or two ago, I sat down and listed out what I wanted my life to look like.
One of the biggest things I wanted in my life was time off.
For the last six years, I’ve never had time off. Even when we would go on vacations, I would always bring my MacBook and would be editing or writing.
I’ve worked seven days a week for the last six years and never took weekends off.
I truly feel that it has led to burnout but also limited my creativity.
When I don’t let my brain relax and not think about work 24/7, it can’t just wander, and often, that’s when the best ideas come.
Another thing I want is friendships.
Making and keeping friendships is hard in your 30’s y’all! I want to be intentional about friendships, being there for my friends, making new friends, having people to do life with, and having community.
I want to be an inspiration to my children.
I want my children to see someone who works hard for their dreams and can do things even when people laugh at them, even when they don’t believe I could make money on the internet.
I suggest to you, if you want to do something like this, if you want to chase a big dream, write it down.
What do you want your life to look like?
What do you want?
This is not just “I want to make $X a year.” What do you really want? Go deep, really dig in, and do some self-reflection.
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