Bekit
Legendary Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
491%
- Aug 13, 2018
- 1,147
- 5,637
I've been facing some FTEs and Its starting to get more frequent as I get older but I only have a 6-month emergency fund and no 2nd source of income.
I'm a little concerned about quitting before I should, so what are some green lights?
I know that there is no guarantee but I guess that some more experienced folks could help me with this.
I've always tried to kept my expenses as low as possible and avoided to start a family but I don't want to quit and a few months later get back to the rats race.
Again I know that there is no guarantee but Im trying to manage the risk.
In 2016, I went through a failed version of this experiment.
I had a runway of about 6 months in savings.
I had some legitimate business skills and knowledge that I believed I could monetize.
I set a hard deadline where if I wasn't making money in 3 months, I would have to look for a job.
I thought that the looming spectre of disaster would be leverage to get me motivated. "I'm going to be homeless and starving if this doesn't work, so I'd better get moving." But it didn't work.
At the end of it all, I didn't make money and I had to look for another job to get me ramped back up.
What caused it to fail? (Consider these as "red lights" if you're in the same boat, or consider them as potential "green lights" if you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you already embody the exact opposite of the things on this list. Already is the key here; don't kid yourself that you'll fulfill your best intentions at being the ideal version of yourself. Prove it now by being that way consistently already, and THEN go ahead and quit your job.)
- I was unfocused. I had a bunch of things that I could do, that were on the cusp of being viable money-earners, but I kept thinking of other things that I could do. "Maybe I should create an app that does X. Maybe I should learn app development so that I can create it myself. Maybe I should publish my book. Maybe I should create an online course to teach X." In the end, I spent my time and energy dabbling in little things rather than committing to ONE item with laser focus until it paid off.
- I didn't ruthlessly guard my "work time" against intruders. There I was, in an IDEAL work environment - alone in the house for 3 months with nothing to interrupt me... but interruptions gobbled up my time anyway. I went to Utah to explore national parks with my brother. I took a road trip to see my sister and stay for a week. I accepted too many invitations to coffee with different people. I spent too much time being a consumer and not a producer, taking multiple online courses from the Shaw Academy and other places. Learning mode is SO much more fun and interesting than execution mode. So I was essentially action faking, and when I look back, the number of hours spent on my most important work ended up being very few.
- I wasn't good at project management. Instead of starting with a solid plan of precisely what I wanted to accomplish, broken down into realistic, achievable milestones, I spent my time "flying by the seat of my pants," guessing at what I should do next, and taking a stab in the dark every time.
- I didn't have any accountability. At the beginning, I was a productivity beast, getting up early every day, hitting the gym consistently, and feeling like I was on top of the world. But I didn't have any leverage beyond that. I was the only one I had to answer to. And that's dangerous. I didn't handle it well. I ended up erring on the side of indulging myself rather than holding myself to a high standard of execution. "Oh, you need more sleep? OK." "Oh, you need to take a break? OK." "Oh, you want to learn this fascinating thing and go down this rabbit trail that is totally irrelevant to your overall direction? OK." It was "sure, go ahead" anytime I wanted to indulge myself, and it was "nah" every time it was going to cost me something. Bad recipe.
You have a solid income plan for when you quit your job. You have a product or service that you know people will buy from you. It's already making some money. The only thing that's holding it up is the amount of time you can invest in it. If you invested 8 hours a day in your side gig instead of your main gig, your income would explode. You have a proof of concept that this is true, not just a guess.
You are productive and focused. You're diligent and determined. You don't indulge yourself like I did when given the choice. You stay the course that you've defined for yourself, making any sacrifices necessary to get there.
You have a viable business plan, not a pipe dream, not wishful thinking, not a "hopeful scenario." You are confident that if you execute your plan, it will pay off. You've looked at the contingencies, overcome the objections, and realistically planned for the unexpected. Other people have vetted your plan and think that it's solid and viable, not just you.
You have at least some project management skills. You're good at breaking a big task down into milestones, and then hitting those milestones. You're great at hitting deadlines.
You've identified any personal weaknesses that tend to plague you, and you've gotten a reasonable amount of wins in those areas, so you're confident they won't derail you.
You are accountable. You've implemented an external source of leverage that can get you back on track if you start to stray off course. You have enough respect for your accountability partner that you'll actually DO what they say instead of shrugging it off. You've created something that makes sure that you're not just accountable to yourself. They have leverage over you so that when your own leverage over yourself is insufficient, you still go the right direction anyway.
Last edited: