When you’re tired of the workforce and eager to start a business that will give meaning to you and the market, is it better to quit your day job cold turkey or work on your business venture on the side and eventually leave the cubicle?

Let’s look at a few of the benefits and things you need to be prepared for if you choose a cold turkey exit.

Benefits:

• Feeling of relief and excitement to finally leave the job
• Get to spend time on as much as you want on your business
• Autonomy
• Working full time on your business venture will add meaning to you and the market- getting you to feel a lot more satisfied.
• You’re in control of choosing the company of people you want to hang around i.e. being with likeminded people for e.g. mentoring groups, networking groups etc
• You’re going to be growing exponentially. Being an employee is a different skillset to being an entrepreneur/ business owner –there is no limit to how much you can learn in executing your business and learning about yourself.

What you need to be prepared for:

• No income (unless you get a casual or part-time work for a few hours a week or are being supported by someone else)
• If you’re a people person, you’ll need to be prepared that the casual banter and talk with colleagues about the weekend, jokes etc. won’t be around.
• Focussed mindset – in the workforce you are given work, with your business venture you need to be organised and know what activity to do next. Be prepared to believe in your venture no matter how many times the computer crashes, if you’re not IT savvy – look past the frustration of IT talk as you try to get you website up and running etc.
• Seek out people, events, books, content and audio that will feed your mind and keep your mindset focussed. This means that watching re-runs of t.v. news is not going to help you (News is a business, its priority is to bring news that will make you gob smacked and not necessarily report news that is important or significant for you to know).
• Seek buddies that have been on the journey that you want to take or people who are also taking the same journey as you – it’s great for support.
• If you’re a routine type person, who needs routine to be organised and in control – no drama – just be okay with creating a new routine for yourself, rather than reminiscing about the old one.

Let’s look at the benefits and the things you need to be prepared for, for a gradual exit strategy.

Benefits:

• Work can be agonising but it can be great to keep motivated to work towards your business venture
• Income
• Learn from the business e.g. how do they market, how do they sell, recruit, manage relationships – so you can run a better business

What you need to be prepared for:

• Making time to work on your business venture e.g. before work, lunchtime, after work and on weekends (sacrifice TV watching time)
• Keeping your mindset focused. Because of a regular income, it’s easy to get comfortable and slip into complacency. Time will fly by and you may find you still haven’t done anything, which causes frustration, causing you to doubt your ability, then the negative self-talk creeps in about why you shouldn’t follow through e.g. “I can’t do this”, “I’m never gonna get this done” etc.
• You really have to want exiting the rat race badly enough, and embrace your business venture hard enough to not settle and fall back into a momentary ‘I can put up with it’ self-talk about the rat race. That happens to many people, until something they don’t like happens and it reminds them that they’re sick of their job (again) and they kick themself for not doing anything when they had decided to before.

I’m sure you can think of many more benefits and items you need to be prepared for, but what I’ve tried to do, is plant the seed, get you thinking about it , so you can take the seed and germinate it to suit your vision.

3 questions to consider:

If you are uncertain as to take the cold turkey route or the gradual exit route, to gain greater clarity, answer the following simple questions.

1) What kind of business model are you considering e.g. brick and mortar, internet, coaching, speaking, author, developing an application etc.?
2) Will you be working on your own or working with others?
3) How much is needed for the initial investment and to keep the business alive and growing?

We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

To your private chart,

Onwards and Upwards,

Rita.

How are you tracking, are you considering a change in 2014, are you thinking of branching out and exploring your own business or a new work opportunity?

Share your thoughts by leaving your comments below.