What questions do I need to resolve to exit my corporate job?
Big Questions to Resolve When You Escape the Rat Race
How to escape the rat race with confidence
There are some actions that just need to be done and ticked off a list. Building a website or opening a business bank account for instance.
But there are some questions that will be keeping you up at night that need to be resolved before you can take other actions. You can’t start a new business until you know what you’d like to do instead and you can’t create your transition plan until you’ve decided how to transition.
In the FREE Escape the Rat Race Checklist I’ve listed some of the most important big questions that may be keeping you up at night. But the answers to these big questions will be unique to you.
In this blog I am going to share a few tips about how to resolve big questions so that you can move on to other, more practical tasks.
#1. Access the free escape the rat race resources I’ve created for you
Firstly, there are lots of free resources on this website to help you make decisions. For instance, to learn more about Business Models check out Episode 116 of the A Brilliant Gamble Podcast where I talk about the options and the pros and cons of each.
There are also episodes about how to work out what you want to do instead and building confidence and discovering who you are (I’d really recommend Episode 100 where I talk to Marianne Power about her adventures which resulted in her best selling book “Help Me”).
There are other blogs on this website with advice too.
#2. Connect with community
Secondly, talk to other people who’ve done it or are going through the same process as you. How are they overcoming obstacles in their escape from the rat race? What resources helped them?
Join the Corporate Escapees Facebook group to connect with me and with others in the same boat and ask your questions. Get specific. Is it your confidence holding you back? If so, ask how people overcame that obstacle...or whether they went ahead and did it despite their fears. Is it lack of clarity about how long it takes to escape the rat race? Ask people how long it took them and whether they would have done anything different with the benefit of hindsight.
I couldn’t have done most of what I’ve done in my life (traveling full time, leaving my job to start my coaching business, letting my hair go grey, moving to a farm) without the support and experience of other people.
#3. Play with scenarios
Sometimes there are lots of possible answers to these questions. If you’re stuck because you don’t know where your life is out of sync, do a bit of dreaming. Picture yourself in a life where you are working part time, for instance. How does that feel? Does it resolve the out-of-sync feeling?
Really imagine yourself in that situation. What comes up?
Now picture yourself working full time but getting more support at home e.g. a cleaner, someone to do the laundry, meal delivery every week, an au pair...Does that do it?
Run through all the options for addressing the big question and allow your mind to imagine it’s real. What comes up? How do you feel? The brain doesn’t know the difference between what is happening and what is imagined. So if you really embrace this exercise your body and emotions will provide you with a lot of information to help you make progress with your escape from the rat race.
#4. Take options away
In a similar way, you can ‘trick’ yourself by taking options off the table and see how you feel.
Let’s say you’re stuck between leaving your job to take a PhD or leaving your job to start a hynotherapy business.
Imagine I’ve told you that you can’t do the PhD. It’s got to be the hypnotherapy business. Done. Decision made.
How do you feel? Relieved? Excited? Disappointed?
Now reverse it. I’m telling you now you have to do the PhD. The hypnotherapy business is off the table.
How do you feel?
If it doesn’t work for me to take options away from you, try this with a friend. Notice what happens physically and emotionally when they tell you Option 1 is gone and then Option 2 is gone and so on. What thoughts come up?
#5. Journaling as you exit your corporate job
Sometimes you need to get your thoughts on to paper. That’s what journaling is all about.
Some people struggle with the idea - What will I write? It’s a practice so you may not feel you’re in the swing of it the first few times. But there’s actually no right or wrong way to journal.
Start with a question you’re trying to resolve so you can move forward with your escape from the rat race. Now start writing down the thoughts that come up in no particular order. Think of it as a conversation with yourself. You will have contradictory thoughts, you’ll get distracted from the original question, and it might take you a few goes to learn something from yourself that you didn’t know.
I remember doing this for the first time when I was a teenager. I don’t think I’d ever heard of journaling but knew I had too many thoughts in my head and I needed to get them out and on to paper. I started writing and writing and writing and I remember so clearly the moment that I got clarity. I saw my truth on the page.
#6. The answers aren’t always perfect
Sometimes you have to move forward with an idea that you’re not 100% sure about. You won’t know until you try it whether it’s right for you. That applies to figuring out where your life is out of sync, what business you could run, when the right time is to leave your job. There are no right answers so you’ll have to pick something that’s 80% right and try it.
Equally, there are very few answers that solve all your problems at once. Leaving your job may solve one set of issues but create others. It can be overwhelming when you feel you need a solution that fixes EVERYTHING or that you need to fix all the repercussions of a decision before you can get started on your journey.
You don’t and you can’t.
Focus on what’s next. As each problem arises trust yourself to be able to resolve it. Figure out the answers you need NOW in order to take a step forward and work out the answers to the next question when you get there.
Otherwise you’ll never escape the rat race.
If you don’t yet have the FREE Escape the Rat Race Checklist you can download it here NOW!