How Writing Helped Me Quit My High-Pressure Job

Working all hours in a high-pressure job damaged my physical, mental and social well-being. Starting a freelance writing career set me free.

Here’s how I did it:

Where the story starts: burnout

Having worked as a high school history teacher in the notoriously cash-strapped British education system, I wasn’t a stranger to stress and overwork. Working weekends, fielding conflicting demands and enduring through energy-sapping long hours came with the territory. Sure, we got long holidays. But in reality these breaks were spent working and trying to recuperate from a gruelling term. I spent many holidays too exhausted, stressed and ill to enjoy myself.

As draining as it is to be on show for six hours a day, aware that your actions impact children’s lives and that any misstep could result in a small-scale riot, the way British schools are run is more draining still. Endless meetings with no resolutions, managers without management skills, unnecessary data collections, more curriculum changes than you could count, and everyone struggling and irritable. Progress and creative thinking were often stifled. New ideas were met either with hostility or the assumption that one person could manage the workload alone. The all-consuming nature of my work had left me completely burnt out. Teaching was endless and isolating.

When I sought out support, I was told to let go of my desire to do well at work all the time — it was incompatible with teaching. It was then, suffering from mental illness and completely demoralized by my work, that I realised that my job was controlling, rather than facilitating, my personal life.

But teaching had defined who I was and I didn’t know who I would be without it. When you spend most of your waking moments working, thinking about work and recovering from overwork, there isn’t much space for anything else. Any interests and hobbies I had from before I started teaching had long fallen by the wayside. Something had to change.

Starting small

Even before I had consciously decided to leave my full-time job, I started doing small writing and research projects on Upwork and selling my teaching resources on TES (Times Educational Supplement). I didn’t really consider that this pocket change could become something bigger until I no longer had any choice.

I was signed off work with extreme stress, anxiety and depression. I recognised that I couldn’t go on living this way. No reliable pay check was worth the lack of control I had over my own life.

I took more writing jobs on freelance job boards and spent this surplus income on courses to learn how to code. The question was what would come next.

Taking the leap

Actually quitting a job I had invested so much of myself in was a pinch-me moment. I thought I might regret my decision. But I haven’t.

I found long-term clients on freelance job boards and began developing a portfolio of work. I used my history degree in a different way, ghost-writing articles about the war in Ukraine. I wrote lifestyle blog posts about wellbeing, sustainability, and other topics that interested me. And I finally found time to work on my novel — my favourite form of writing. Don’t get me wrong, to build a reliable income I have had to write about things that don’t interest me too. But I have the control over my life that I craved.

I set my own working hours. I don’t work weekends. I choose my projects and clients. It’s not all sunshine, but the days of burnout are over.

As my working world changed, so did my finances. I started to build an emergency fund to cover the dips in workflow that come with freelancing — not something you have to think about with stable income. I began investing a percentage of my earnings after educating myself on personal finance and being inspired by the Girls that Invest podcast. I am searching for ways to diversify my income and rely less on job boards for work. And I put my new coding skills to work by building a website to display my work portfolio and attract more long-term clients.

Having the time and headspace to nurture and grow the different branches of my life — not just the professional — has helped me to feel more like myself.

The future

When I started teacher training, I looked forward to a stable career which I would do until I retired. I thought I had found my place in the world. ‘Teacher’ was my identity and my social media bio. Now things look different. I see possibilities, new skills to master and new paths to wander down.

If I could go back, I would tell my past-self to not let a job become my entire identity.

As I move into the future, I am seeing freelancing writing as a way to unlock the life I want.

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