“I Hate Corporate Life!” (How to leave corporate life)

So you’re thinking of leaving your corporate life and joining the so called “Great Resignation”? You came to the right place as I myself decided to leave my corporate job after 12 years. It was a difficult decision and process. While I’m all for the “just do it!”, “it’s going to be the best decision of your life!” rah-rah, I’m also here to tell you that if you’re having some difficulty and sleepless nights deciding whether to leave your corporate job or not, you’re on the right track. Of course, it’s scary! After years of enjoying the safety of having a monthly salary, of course it’s a frightening thought to suddenly have none. But I’m here to share with you the things I’ve learned and the process I went through when I decided to leave my corporate job.

Step 1: Be honest with yourself — Know your reasons

It sounds so simple but you need to be honest with yourself first and know the REAL reasons why you want to leave corporate life. Do you hate your boss? Do you hate your company’s work culture? If these are your reasons, you may not need to leave corporate life at all. If you hate your boss, you may just need to explore other options in your company where you can be transferred to a different team and be managed by a different boss. If you hate your company’s work culture, maybe you do love your job but you just need to find a different company with a culture that will allow you to thrive. Don’t jump the gun. Reflect and really identify what it is about corporate life that troubles you.   

Don’t jump the gun. Reflect and really identify what it is about corporate life that troubles you.

Step 2: Check your financials

If you wake up in the middle of the night screaming “I hate corporate life!”, “I’m not cut out for corporate life!” and you’ve firmly decided to leave corporate life for good or at least for now, it’s time to check your financials. Can you actually afford to not have a monthly salary right now? Check your cash flow. How much comes in and how much goes out? How much are you able to save? Will you survive for at least a year with the savings that you have? It’s important to not be abstract about this. This is not the time for wild estimates especially during this age of deadly virus variants and looming recessions. REALLY look at the numbers. What worked for me is to use a mobile app called 1Money. With this app, it’s so easy to input your salary and record your expenses. It shows how much you’ve saved (or not saved) and it can also break down your expenses by category so you can easily see where you can cut back on. It also shows your averages and trends month on month.

Image from 1Moneyapp.com

Step 3: Make a plan

Now it’s time to make a plan. Imagine you’ve left your corporate job, what would you be doing? What is it that you want to do with all the time you will now have? For me I knew that I wanted to hit pause on my corporate life in order to spend more time with my toddler. That was my main priority. But going back to the first item on this list about being honest with myself, I knew that no matter how exciting and fulfilling being a full time mom would be, I knew that there will always be a part of me who wanted to work and do something for myself other than being a mom, wife and daughter. So my plan was to resign from my corporate job, enjoy motherhood and start a business. Should my business fail to succeed and should my financial situation require me to start earning more and consistently, it was in my plan to eventually go back to corporate life. Now I know that doesn’t sound like the triumphant, happy ending that you wanted to hear, but having that realistic plan made me feel more confident and braver to take the leap and jump start this huge change.

If you have a partner, it would be wise to discuss your plan with him or her especially if you contribute a lot with the household expenses. In my case, I was taking care of half of our household expenses so it was crucial for us to be absolutely sure that my husband could cover my half for the meantime.

If you’re living on your own and you’ve figured that you can’t afford to cover your rent and other expenses without a monthly salary, consider starting a side hustle first. Seek to apply what you already know or your passions and hobbies into a new venture or project. 6 months before I resigned, I started a print on demand business and opened a shop on Etsy and Amazon. In my corporate job, I was given the opportunity to double hat and work with our company’s e-commerce team. I learned a lot and I wanted to apply what I’ve learned to my own personal project.

Here are some samples of my products on Etsy.

At that time, I still wasn’t thinking of resigning, but I was inspired by an online course that my husband and I took called Slow Growth by Matt D’Avella. Another helpful source would be Skillshare which has thousands of online classes from photography to marketing to culinary and more. It’s definitely a great place to level up your passions and hobbies and develop them into a business that can hopefully become your full time job.

Image from slowgrowth.com

Image from skillshare.com

Step 4: Make it happen!

As I’ve said, having a plan made me more confident and braver to quit my corporate job but that didn’t mean I stopped being terrified. I was of course looking forward to becoming a full time mom, but I also wanted my personal projects-slash-businesses to work out. But for them to succeed, I had to start them first! This was quite difficult to do for someone like me who’s shy and has some confidence issues. So like most people nowadays, I went on Youtube and stumbled upon a book recommended by Ali Abdaal called “Show Your Work” by Austin Kleon. It’s the perfect book for anyone who, like me, are shy and self-conscious about “putting yourself or your work out there”. Whatever your plan is, follow through. Read a book, take a course, talk to a friend – find ways to make it happen.

Image from amazon.com

Deciding to leave corporate life is definitely a difficult decision and process, but having a plan can help. Don’t jump the gun. Reflect, talk to family and friends, check your financials, and make a plan. As some people online or corporate life Tiktoks would say, leaving corporate life could be “your best decision ever!”. But as with most things in life, it’ll be all up to us and what we do with our time. Good luck to us on this journey and may this well be our best decision ever!