I remember one time sitting down with my Dad, who had worked for years at a car factory and told him "I hate my job." He responded in his usual manner and told me "Well welcome to the real world...we all hate our jobs." That was about 3 months before his 50th birthday, another 6 months after that he passed away. The 60 hour weeks in a factory no doubt contributed to his poor health.
My Dad had great musical skills as well as an uncanny ability for wood working. Would he still be around if he took a leap and went into business for himself doing something he loved? I am not sure, I can't make that call, but I do know how the job he hated affected him and it wasn't positive.
When I told my Dad I hated my job, I meant it. I really really meant it! Can anyone relate to waking up and just feeling utter dread about going to work? You are in a bad mood, you snap at your loved ones, you can't bring yourself to get out of the bed and all you can think about when you are at work is when is my shift over?
You watch the clock all day. You even make that promise to yourself you won't look at the clock for HOURS. You wait and wait for what seems like an eternity and you look at the clock and see that 17 minutes have passed. It is soul crushing!
Still we do it over and over again. I know I did. I thought I would stay at my past job forever. I worked at a homeless shelter - dealing with a wide variety of mental illnesses, addictions and dangers. I thought that was my lot in life. I can't leave my job, how will I pay the bills? Then a friend of mine called me up to say he was starting is own business. I was blown away - this guy has a job I would kill for - a comfy corporate gig that brought him 6 figures a year.
It motivated me - I followed him into the wild west of entrepreneurship. A couple years later, MANY failures under our belt and many lessons learned, I am now making more money than my job, and the dread and hatred of work...is gone.
If I had to give people advice about leaving their job - I would wrap it up with three letters: P.P.M
1. Prepare - If you want to leave your job - prepare! Save more money than usual, try to build a nice nest egg that you can fall back on in a worst case scenario. Preparation also includes not burning your bridges. Don't leave in a blaze of glory, give your notice in a timely fashion and try to stay on friendly terms with your co-workers. They might be your customers in the future.
2. Passion - Discover what your passion truly is. What do you love to do? What do you HAVE to do to stay happy? What kind of things make you bounce awake in the morning? This seems easy, but a lot of times people have trouble admitting what it is they really love to do. Take the time to figure out your real passions.
3. Monetize - The most important step! You need to figure out how to monetize your passion. I loved to design things on the computer - I now design websites as a lucrative side gig. I love doing it - it was a passion of mine and I get paid for it. That is the type of thing you need to figure out for yourself. I truly believe all passions can be monetized if you are creative enough.
Obviously that is not a full system to leave your job. There is a lot more to think about before hand and there is a lot more to do after you leave your job. This is merely my personal take on the basics of it.
My aforementioned friend does have a fully fleshed out system though. He has taken what he has learned and created a manual that anyone who is stuck in a dead end job should read. I WISH I had something like this when I left work - just the mistakes it would allow me to avoid would pay for it hundreds of times over.
You can check out his story here: Quit Your Job