From Quitting My Job to Making $10,000/month in 10 Months
10 months ago I quit my 9 till 5 job in a fortune 500 company with no plan. Now I’m making upwards of $10000/month from one of my business’.
For those who plan of quitting your job to pursue a passion or something more in this short life, then this is the article for you.
In this article, I’ll be detailing all the challenges I’ve faced and how I’ve overcome them.
Although there is still a long journey ahead for me, I feel I’m at a stage where reflecting on my experiences will provide benefit for others and myself :)
I hope through this article I can help you decide whether this path is truly for you or whether it’s just another case of “the grass is greener on the other side”.
In this post I’ll be listing out the 6 key lessons I’ve learnt since leaving my job.
1. You don’t have to have a plan
There’s a lot of blog posts out there saying that before you leave your job you should have a plan. But ultimately I believe it comes down to your situation.
If you have little risk and know this is right for you, then go for it. However, if you have a lot of responsibility and financial obligations e.g. a family, then it makes more sense to approach leaving your job with caution.
For those who are fortunate to not have many financial obligations, waiting for the stars to align before you leave can be a dangerous game.
Before leaving my job, I had many unsatisfied co-workers who worked for the company for decades with many regrets.
This ranged from not applying for higher paying jobs or not leaving to pursue their passions.
The Boiling Frog fable describes perfectly of what could have happened to me…
The premise is that if a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out, but if the frog is put in warm water which is then brought to a boil slowly, it will not recognise the danger and will be cooked to death.
I had a comfortable job, a good salary and a promising career. Every time I felt unhappy, I would remind myself of the above facts and that what I was doing was the best path because it was “safe”.
“Safe” until I realised I was the frog in the pot on track for40 with a load of regrets. I didn’t want to become like my older colleagues.
Even if you don’t have a plan, If you really want it you’ll make things work, with or without a plan.
2. Set Detailed Goals
One big reason for the little success that I’ve got is because I set myself clear goals with defined timelines.
When you’re your own boss, suddenly you don’t have anyone looking over your shoulder.
You’ll quickly find that your destiny is in your own hands — if you fail it’s entirely your fault and no one else’s… which is great! (This is an immensely liberating feeling)
Setting clearly defined goals with timelines is a great way to hold yourself accountable. By internalising these goals, it gives you that extra needed boost when you just don’t want to get out of bed.
3. Don’t let life pass you by
Once I set out to achieve my goal, I became obsessed with it and forget about the thing things that were important to me.
Letting life pass me by in the initial 6 months is one regret I have :(
Even though I worked remotely in Malaysia, working 70 hour weeks to achieve my goal left little time and energy for exploring.
However, with a savings account depreciating day be day, it made sense to work my ass off to get my business profitable in the beginning.
But once I had enough money to sustain myself, I should have incorporated more balance into my life!
For example instead of working from 8am till 11pm I now work from 9am — 5pm (the irony haha), leaving time to explore other passions such as Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
With less time to work, It also forced my to become more effective, focusing only on the things that mattered (Pareto Principle — 80% of the results comes from 20% of the inputs).
Burnout is also a serious issue of being obsessed with your goal! Working 70 hour days I had a burn out every 3 months easily setting me back a few weeks.
So remember, if you’re chilling don’t feel guilty! Your having fun, exploring life and avoiding a burn out :)
4. Believe that you can do it
There will be a lot of uncertainty in the first few months. The amount of times I’ve doubted myself in the past 10 months has long gone past the number to count.
However, believing in myself was such an important component to the successes I’ve had so far.
Knowing that whatever happens, I BELIEVE that I’ll make it work.
The trust and confidence I built in myself didn’t come from past results but rather complete faith that I would make it work.
This sounds a bit woo woo but I would highly recommend reading Think and Grow Rich by Napolean Hill to explain how it works.
It’s a fantastic book where Napolean is tasked by Ford to discover the secret formula to becoming successful.
He does this through interviewing the richest and most successful people in America and essentially boils it down to belief.
5. Once you find that idea — Double down
Once I found the idea that was making me enough money to travel and work I was always looking for the next shiny thing to work on.
At times I would divert my attention from my main business (Pixel True) to explore a new idea. However working on 2 businesses at a time, left me working overtime and distracted.
This quickly led to a lack of sleep and focus and eventually a burnout setting my progress back by weeks.
Once you have that winning idea, you should to double your efforts on that idea until you can hire a team to do the work for you.
6. Try to work on something you care about
In the early stages you’ll just have to do work to make ends meet. And that means doing things you don’t particularly care about.
Money will be the primary motivating factor in the beginning.
Once you hit the point where you don’t need to worry about money you’ll probably start to hate your job.
It will become unbearable to work on your business.
When starting out, try to work on something you’re interested in. It will make work simply not feel like work and you’ll end outpacing your competition by simply showing up each day.
And that’s pretty much it! 10 months worth of lessons boiled down into a 6 minute blog post.
I don’t regret leaving my job and although I have a long journey ahead, I’ll be holding these lessons close to heart moving forward :)
Have an awesome day and stay safe!
