Why do so many of us bow down to our fears? Most of us will get up early, get dressed, go to work for someone else and come home feeling empty because of it.
Or, some of us will give up our career to stay at home with the kids, all while dealing with that missing piece of your professional life that you miss so badly.
Leaving the Corporate Life to Work From Home
Like most people, you probably dread going into the office every day, fighting traffic, dropping your kids off at before school care, counting the hours until it’s 5pm so you can do it all over again in reverse. Your company has instilled some level of fear in you that you could lose your job at any point, so you better perform. Some are lucky, thought, and have a great team and a great boss who motivates, gives you freedom to work the way you work best, and have supportive colleagues that are fun to have lunch and shoot the breeze with! But, when your day is over, you don’t go home feeling fulfilled, rather you feel lucky to have a job and income.
In my opinion, one is not better than the other! I learned the hard way that life is way too short to spend 60% of my week somewhere I didn’t want to be. Not only did I not want to be there personally, but “being there”, meant I was NOT there when my kids needed me.
Now, when I made this leap of faith, there was more than just unhappiness at my job that pushed me. Life happened. But I do know that the fear was there. Resigning from my very well paying, professional position in corporate IT felt like I was stepping off a cliff. I was pretty much scared of everything. Fear of losing savings, fear of going broke, fear of making a fool of myself….the list goes on.
3 Ways to Get Through the Jump
In the almost 3 years I’ve been working from home, I’ve learned a few things about the ups and downs of this decision I made such a short time ago:
- Get over it:
I talked about the fear of leaving my corporate job on Facebook Live this morning with my new friend Sheila. I am not telling you to go and quit your job willy-nilly. You have to have a strategy in place, and a plan for money. I’m not that big of a dreamer. When I made my decision it was a full 3 months before I walked out of my office for the last time. We also saved my whole paycheck for those 3 months and figured out that where the money was going. What did this teach us? That most of this 2nd income was being wasted. We did fine on the one income! However, taking that leap of faith is just that – a leap of faith. I knew with my whole heart that this is what God’s plan was for me and he has provided for our family every since.
- Meet people
My journey started first with meeting Meredith. She was my mentor for almost a year showing me some of the ropes of the online marketing game. We quickly became friends and decided to go into business together. Meeting someone like-minded with the same goals and dreams made the journey that much easier. As family duties changed and more time opens up I am getting out in my own community by joining networking groups and other social gatherings. It helps to know people in ALL things!
- Learn new skills
The online and social media marketing world came easy to me. I really enjoy technology. Obviously…..I have been working in information technology and software development and support for almost 20 years. I have a knack for learning and teaching people how to use tools. So, the past 3 years I have been learning how to do things in online marketing every day! There are experts out there that I have followed and kept up with that introduce things to me each day. Just like my corporate job paid for me to attend trainings for my job position, I have invested money in some of their courses for the good stuff and will give the same advice; Read books and blogs, (like this one!!) take online courses and find mentors/coaches who will help you through the tough times.
Conclusion
There you have it! These are the main ways that I made my leap of faith from suit to sweats. Believe me, it has not been an easy road, but I can wholeheartedly tell you that it has been the most rewarding time in my career and personal life.
What about you? Have you made that leap to work from home and take back your time?
