How Did You Leave Your Last Job to Pursue Either Self-Employment, or A Job In A Field You Love?

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BenjiTheSausage@reddit

I switched from retail to IT repair, I got an apprenticeship and I love it, I'll actually have a career.

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Illustrious-End-5084@reddit

I’ve gone between self employment and employment all my working life

As long as I have work (self employment) it is 100x better than working for a company

I’m self employed carpenter now and I really enjoy it

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Chaosblast@reddit

I spent 6 years in uni and 6 working in my original safe and well paid career. Dreading every Monday.

A 1k online course for self reflection and finding out what I wanted to do.

Another 5k course to get a first training and first foot into this other field I liked. I was doing 40h in work and 40h in course stuff a week.

Right after I started finding some small clients as self employed. Not enough to sustain. But when I had 3 lined up, I saw it was somewhat viable, but I couldn't dedicate more time if I meant to grow.

I had savings, so I took the leap and gave in my resignation.

Worked as self employed for 1.5y, getting by. It helped I was good enough and was hired to teach in the course I did, for 1 year. From home, on my schedule, in stuff I had passion for and my skills shined.

Another 1k online course for personal development here.

After 1.5y, I joined with my partner who was already an established self employed in a related field and we were collaborating more and more and some projects.

We incorporated into LTD. It's been 4 years now.

We're not rich (some could say we're poor, 25k each net per year on our worst years), but I'd say we work 1-2 day a week on average. I wouldn't change it for anything.

Ever since I left engineering I've felt like I live in permanent holidays. It's THE life.

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SlightlyIncandescent@reddit

Long story but relevant, I found myself in a very similar situation.

I found myself in customer service and tech support jobs for almost 15 years. Just chose it because I was good at it and the jobs are widely available but I wasn't really happy. I assumed if I worked hard and got promoted that it would be better but I did that in a couple of different jobs and each time it was just exponentially more stress for incrementally more pay.

I sat down and really asked myself what I want from life, and every answer I came up with was stuff I wanted from my free time and not a career, stuff like travelling, more time for hobbies, retiring early. I was never going to destroy my mental health by working hard in a job I hate for another 30+ years to do this stuff when I retire, I want a taste of it now.

So I decided instead of trying to earn more money, I'm trying to spend less. So changed the plan of moving to a bigger house once this one is paid for, I'll stay here and not pay a mortgage. I cut costs here and there by not having the latest tech and using them until they break, cheap/reliable car, getting better at meal prepping, made the house more energy efficient, growing my own fruit and veg, learning to do most DIY jobs at home myself etc.

For the job I moved to a part time handyman/caretaker job for a hotel. I'm loving my lifestyle of more straightforward honest, non-bullshit work. No more worrying about a number on a spreadsheet, meetings or a bad review from some entitled prick. It's fix this thing, great now it works. Grow this veg at home so I can eat it etc.

It's not for everyone, I have less money than ever so obviously I'm limited in other ways but I'm the happiest I've been in years. In terms of retirement plans I'm doing a bit of the handyman stuff on the side too so I'm hoping that gets to the point of being a self sustaining business or I can just continue to do that or another part time job when I'm old. At least my house will be paid for and efficient as hell to run.

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Jlaw118@reddit

Me and my partner moved in with my grandma the year before and I sold my apartment. The sale finally went through about a year after moving in and I had money sat in my bank account that I was saving for the future.

I’d been getting annoyed with the job for a while. I’d been on paternity leave and returned to a mountain of work that nobody had helped me with in my absence, and then my manager breathing down my neck constantly about not catching up on it, whilst pulling me away to do other jobs constantly.

A colleague of mine was also getting fed up, and he kept sending me vans that were for sale, telling me I could afford to jump ship, get a van and quit that job. It was a bit of a joke to begin with.

Then my manager made a massive cock up and threw me under the bus for it. He was expecting me to stress and be worried about my job whilst awaiting disciplinary. But I phoned a friend of mine up who owns quite a large local courier firm and asked if I left my job, would he have any work going? He said yes. I mulled it over for a few days and decided I was going to have the last laugh watching my manager squirm whilst I served four weeks notice, and hit him with the letter at the end of that week.

To be honest I was hoping one of my senior managers was going to pull me aside and ask what my demands would be to stay and convince me, but I didn’t even get a goodbye off him. So on the second week of my notice, I enquired about a van, promised a large deposit and got approved for the finance of the rest of it. Third week I picked it up, and on the fourth week I started doing bits on an afternoon.

Struggled a bit for work last year but I’ve grown my business into transport and logistics within the last two years. Now my partner has jumped onboard this year and we have a successful online toy shop alongside the courier work. It’s been stressful but it’s been the best thing I ever did

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bakerjor01@reddit

I am in the similar situation. I work 9-5 job and sometimes dream about freelancing or switch to self-employment. But self-employment look so scary to me, I know that the beginning is very hard but it's also scary to loose everything I have now. And then I think that I will have even less free time than I have now.

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elgrn1@reddit

I went from being employed as a project manager to self employed as a project manager taking on contract work.

It's not quite the question you asked but it may be a short term option for you that allows you to side step to something else.

It has less job security, if that's even a thing anymore, but it pays better, which gives you the money needed to start up something else you're invested in.

And then you just need to balance both for a while until your new thing takes off.

Which is what I plan to do, as I want to become a psychologist. So this pays the bills while I train and establish my new business and market/promote my services, etc, until one day I can do that full time and still meet my financial obligations.

Financial stability doesn't always have to be something you sacrifice for greater job satisfaction.

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IndividualCurious322@reddit

I did 3D animation at the time and asked for time off after being diagnosed with PTSD for something that occurred away from work. It was denied, so I took all my paid sick days and immediately quit when those ran out.

I write and illustrate now.

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QuietBusy1129@reddit

I got made redundant in 2004-2022 where I ended up being my Mum's chief carer together with my brother earning £67.00 a week.We literally had to pool our resources as we still had a mortgage to pay as well as a car.In all honesty God helped me through it all.I was better off than I would have been if I had been working full time.From April 2022 - Nov 24 has a hard time as I was back & forward to hospital 's as I was having procedure 's and gynae probs as well as my right hip but wasn't meant to go back to work.Now retired.Unfortunately I'm without Mum & my brother who both passed with cancer but never regretted taking care of them.

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1968Bladerunner@reddit

Worked 8 years with first employer, got a wee bit of redundancy at 24 & was going to go to Uni to study IT, as it was my main hobby, but then started getting requests for help from businesses & individuals.

Ended up going self-employed & had a tough first 12-18 months, starting with zero business acumen. Looking back I wished I'd run part-time in conjunction with my previous job, but encouragement from family & friends pushed me through.

Am now 31 years on, have loved nearly every minute of it and it truly does not feel like work. Never hoped to be rich - just comfortable, which I've achieved.

Freedom to choose hours & to be readily available as the kids were growing up were major plus points for me, while irregularity of income was only real bugbear... building a decent emergency fund during the peaks in order to smooth out the troughs is best (I did the bad way & relied on credit for way too long - paid the price in interest).

After a divorce, paying off mortgage & debts, saving for a few years, & with both kids earning & independent, I ended up cutting back hours & semi-retiring at 50. Do just enough now to pay the bills & enjoy a quiet stress-free life.

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knight-under-stars@reddit

My career change came in my late 30s, I wanted to shift from my existing career which had very little room to grow into software engineering. By this point in my life I was married, and we had kids too, I was the main earner.

In order to pursue this dream I left my job and went to university as a mature student. I couldn't not earn so I was also working full time outside of university hours to sustain the family finances.

As I learned skills on my course I monetised them in my free time and was able to transition away from the evening job to doing university during the day and then working completely self employed in my non-university time.

This not only enabled me to keep financially supporting my family while at university but crucially meant that when I started looking for jobs I was an incredibly desirable candidate with a proven portfolio of work I could evidence, a long track record of dealing with real clients and a very clear to see work ethic. This coupled with the transferrable skills/experience I brought from my previous decades of work meant I had my pick of job offers for my first job.

Leaving my old career was a huge gamble, at times I really felt pressure of the responsibility I had to balance my education and providing for my family. But ultimately now, 6 years on from graduation I earn much more than even director level people at my old job were on, I get to work with people far smarter than I ever will be (so am learning all the time) and have the kind of work/life balance most people dream of.

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Bionix_52@reddit

Closest I’ve had to a 9-5 was about a year working for a company that designed theatre and tv studio Lighting installations which was pretty much another step on the ladder to my dream job of designing the lighting for concerts.

I went self employed after realising that the boss was more interested in me being at my desk at 9am in a shirt and tie than he was about the fact that I’d been working until 4am supporting my line manager who was in Malaysia by pulling together a quote with drawing. I was expected to be at my desk with nothing to do all day looking busy but still wanted to support my line manager who I had a great working relationship with.

I quit with no idea how I would support myself beyond casual work at my local theatre (where I already worked). My manager flew back as soon as he got the news, we had a chat and when I told him I was going freelance he offered me a rolling 20 day purchase order that freed me up to take on other freelance work as long as I met his deadlines. This supported me while I built my freelance career.

22 years later I now run my own lighting rental company and also work on film and TV productions. Going self employed can be scary but I wouldn’t want it any other way. My only advice would be to do things properly from the start as integrating proper systems when you’re up and running is really difficult, try and replicate or be better than the industry leaders even if they’re a global company and you’re on your own, your clients will notice. And before you make the jump try and settle as many outstanding loans/finance agreements as possible the fewer monthly commitments you have the less stressed you’ll be when the work slows down for a bit

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PirateEducational168@reddit

"For those who were in a similar boat, how did you change up your career?"

Looked for jobs I wanted to try, found one and applied for it.

"If you switched to self-employed, how did you go about it? Was it a rocky start? Etc etc…"

I also have income from self-employment.

"how did you go about it?"

Boot-strapped it around work, so mainly evenings and weekends and built it up.

"Was it a rocky start?"

Not rocky as there was virtually no risk. But it was very intense. Working full time and then running a business around that is quite demanding.

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fords42@reddit

I built my business up over a few years while working full time. It worked out quite nicely for me because when I was ready to leave my job my fixed term contract was coming to an end.

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Outrageous_Jury4152@reddit

I left mine putting my colleagues stapler in a jelly lol

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Peanut0151@reddit

In my mid 20s I left a soul destroying factory job that was affecting my mental and physical health and didn't pay enough. I went and did a degree and a shit load of volunteering and ended up working with homeless and vulnerable people. The hours were just as bad as the factory job and the pay really wasn't much better but my well being was off the scale! I did it for over 20 years. It was a big step and there were hard times but I got through and my only regret is that I didn't do it sooner

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BeKind321@reddit

I tried self employment and it was hard to gain traction.

In the end I shopped around for a full time job at a company I like. So I do one or two days in the office with a small team of decent people and three days at home. The team don’t live to work and keep to office hours.

Works for me! As Simon Sinek said ‘stress is doing something you hate’ or something like that ..!

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