In my last post I explained the dilemma that I currently face regarding my job. I feel like my day job is a waste of my time and I wish to quit and start my own business where I feel I can really live my purpose. The problem is that like most people, I rely on the income from my day job to pay for my everyday living expenses so if I was to quit I would burn through my savings very quickly. As the business idea is a total unknown it makes it very difficult to make a decision.
Two Different Viewpoints
I have thought about this decision daily for about two weeks now. I read a lot of blogs and newsletters and almost every day I'll come across something related to quitting your job, or living your life as you want it and so on. Every time I gain a slightly different perspective on things. However what I am finding is that my current standing on the issue sways radically towards one decision or the other depending on the way I look at the problem.
First of all, I know that my day job is just a temporary solution. The question is, how temporary? A month? A Year? More? That's the big decision. It's not so much do I quit my job, as when do I quit? The basic problem is that if I quit now, or indeed, any time in the near future, I will plunge myself into a situation where I have no income and I have to live off my savings. The only 'safe' approach that I can think of is to start my business part time and try to build it up to a point where it earns me enough money to live on before I quit my day job. The difficulty is that I only have a few hours a week on a part time basis so I see this taking a very long time, seemingly too long to bear.
I have two fundamentally different ways of looking at the problem. Here is the one that is currently shouting the loudest in my mind: Life is precious, the essence of life is time. Time wasted is life wasted. Now that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that employment is not for me, I should not waste another day of my life doing it. I am letting my fear of the unknown trap me in a job that does not fulfill me. This is what many, many people do and they get to the end of their lives and think, "Damn, is that all there is?". I should conquer my fear, resign today and press on with what my heart tells me to do. If I work hard, study hard, read well, and keep an open mind success is sure to follow.
On the other hand there is a quieter voice that nags at me and tells me a different story. It says to me... I'm being impatient. Patience is a virtue. Yes I know I want to quit my job, who doesn't? But doing so would be reckless and irresponsible. I should stop obsessing with quitting and instead focus on building up that business income with whatever time and resources I have available. If I put my mind to it, there is no reason why I should not be able to build a sizable income part time. I should be asking myself how could I organise my time better and work more productively. By wanting to quit now I am showing a weakness - the inability to stick out the tough times in order to reap the rewards later. I want to harvest the crop before I have sown the seed.
Using Values to Evaluate the Options
Both of these views seem perfectly valid to me even though they are in total opposition to each other. Which is right? I suspect there is no right or wrong. Which is right for me? Ahh, there's the rub. One tool that I could perhaps use to help me in making this decision is to look at my values. I might make a post about values later but for now I'll just mention some of the ones that seem relevant here. I have two sets of values. One is the positive set - values I want to live by on a daily basis. The second set are the negative ones - those values (states might be a better word here) that I want to avoid on a daily basis.
On the positive side I have values such as Integrity, Drive, Focus, Growth, Freedom, Courage, and Success - in that order. On the negative side, the top emotion I want to avoid is Weakness. Then Laziness, Guilt, Fear, Constriction, and Futility, again in that order. I can immediately see conflicts there. On the one hand values such as drive, growth, freedom and courage tell me that I should follow my heart and quit. On the other hand the number one thing I am trying to avoid is weakness and which ever way I look at it I feel as though I am being weak. If I stay I am showing weakness by lacking the courage to quit. If I quit I am showing weakness by not sticking it out. Also, guilt is way up there on the things I want to avoid. If I quit, I'd feel incredibly guilty about putting my family into financial hardship. The decision would be much easier to make if I was single without any responsibilities. Both decisions push me towards both positive and negative values which is why I am so torn.
Using Projection to help Evaluation
I need to look at this from another angle. Another useful tool is to project into the future and look again at the two directions my life could be taking. Let's say that I stay in my job and build my part time business. Now project a year forwards. How is my business doing? If I'm still not earning any money or very little then I have wasted a year of my life. That's the image that makes me want to quit right now. On the other hand a year from now I might be making almost enough to live on. Also, if that was the case I would have also built up sizeable savings. I would now be able to quit my job fairly free and the problem is solved.
Now lets take the other choice and project. I've quit my job and started working on the business full time. How is the business doing? If I'm still not making money after a year I am in real trouble. I would have used up every ounce of savings and I would lose everything I have worked for over the last few years. Does this mean that I would now have to go back to job hunting after all that effort? This is worst-case scenario for me. This is the big fear that is keeping me from quitting. The big "what if" is "what if I quit, and just never make any money??". But isn't that kind of question just fear and doubt talking? On the other hand, I might start making money really quickly, and then it could grow from there and in it's possible that in just one year I could be making more than I ever did in conventional employment.
Gathering Information & Evaluating
Looking at these future scenarios highlights one common question - "how is my business doing?" I can ask myself this question any time I like and I think that's exactly what I need to do. The kind of business that I want to create requires me to invest a lot of time up front in study and development. It cannot earn any money until a product has been developed so I think it sensible to at least wait until I have done this. Right now I have absolutely no information upon which to base my decision. In order to gather some information I need to evaluate on a regular basis. Every month I can ask myself the question "how is my business doing?".
Common sense tells me that if I consistently work towards my goals every single day, even if only for an hour, that I will eventually make progress. Of course I would make progress much faster if I could spend 10 hours a day on it which is why I want to quit now. Ideally, I would earn enough money in my day job to be able to save money every month and then over time I would be slowly building the business but also building up a safety net. Unfortunately that is not the case so I have to rely on the business alone. If I keep track of my progress every month I should be able to start making more accurate predictions about how long it will take me to make further progress.
As I evaluate my situation each month I can he honest with myself about my rate of progress. Have I made significant progress or have I just wasted another month? If I am going too slow I can take a close look at how I am spending my time and try to do better. If (when!) I get to a point where my business starts generating an income then I can keep track of that to make better projections.
So for now I'll stay in my job *sigh*, work hard on my business and look at the situation again in August.
Thursday, 5 July 2007
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