If you think quitting your job is crazy, you can stop reading now. Clearly, you are not prepared, psychologically, financially, or otherwise, for making such a jump. Or you are perfectly satisfied with your job, which is totally cool too. But if a small voice answers “Yes” to the question “Should I quit my job?”, then you kee
If on the other hand, a small voice answers “Yes” to the question “Should I quit my job?”, you should definitely keep reading. It means that you have been having an urge to quit your job for a while, and opened this page to look for some encouragement.
In this post, we’ll give you five mighty fine reasons to quit your job and pursue your business dreams.
1. Your job is not that secure anyway
Between automation, outsourcing, and downsizing, millions of employees have already found themselves out of some job they’ve been working at for years — even decades. Countless others will face the same fate. Whether you blame it on corporate greed, globalism, the one percent, robots taking our jobs, or what have you, being an employee means you’ll face the same risk.
Starting your own business means taking your working fortune into your own hands — instead of being at the mercy of the latest CEO singing off layoffs and jumping off in their golden parachute.
2. You don’t owe your company anything
Once upon a time, a corporate job offered some assurances. In those days, now well behind us, an office career was for life. Nowadays? Not so much.
Not only will the average company overwork and under-compensate you, but they’ll also drop you in the blink of an eye the moment you cease being useful to them.
Or when they decide to hire two fresh out of college kids for half your salary each. It’s nothing personal: it’s just that they value profit over you. So how about you start valuing what’s best for you over them, too?
3. Are you really happy with your job?
I guess not. If you were you wouldn’t have read this far. Sure, you might earn a lot, but money can’t buy happiness — especially if you work long hours and never get to enjoy them in the first place.
Besides, is what you’re currently doing what you really want to be doing?
A lot of us just chance upon a job or accept the first job we find when we get out of college, and from then on we follow the same career path blindly. Or we enter a particular profession as starry-eyed youngsters but are soon disillusioned with what it actually entails.
Going your own way can give you the opportunity to revive old career dreams, or embark on new and exciting professional journeys.
4. You won’t be alone in this
Going freelance is no anymore the wild and crazy “chase-your-dreams” affair that older generations might have considered. It’s not even that rare either. In fact, according to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, full and part-time employees amounted to 93% of the workforce in 1995, but are only 85% percent now — the rest being freelancers and temps.
What’s more, this trend is not showing any signs of slowing down either — by 2020 freelancers are expected to grow from 7% to 16% of the workforce, and who knows how it goes from there.
What all this means is that the current economic climate favors freelancing — and is increasingly precarious for salaried employees. And while not all freelancers will find great success in their self-employed businesses, they would at least be better prepared to deal with upcoming job market changes than someone fired from his job at 40 or 50.
5. YOLO
A slogan popular with the kids a decade or so ago, YOLO is an acronym that stands for “You only live once”. Which, except if your first name is Lazarus, is kind of true, if you think about it.
This means that you only have this one life to make your mark on the world. Do you think you can achieve that in your current job?
If you are nodding positively, then more power to you; it is, after all, perfectly possible (think of a doctor helping people at a clinic, or a journalist writing riveting exposes). If, on the other hand, your job doesn’t leave much room for creative expression, or your efforts and opinions are not valued at your workplace, launching your own business is a good way to prove everybody wrong.
Or not — but as they say, the only things you regret, are those that you didn’t try. After all, YOLO!
