Many have made the mistake of quitting their jobs and pursued what was meaningful (purpose) when they weren’t in momentum.
In my humble opinion, the best time to leave your job is when:
You have done all your research about your market and the kinds of individuals that will use/buy your offering, and;
Have had one person pay for your product/service
Getting your product or service to these two milestones is not easy and may take a year or two. You are pregnant with possibilities but your baby isn’t born yet if the above is not achieved. So then, like a pregnant woman, you have to go to your job pregnant. Pregnant people go to their job too and the baby goes with them!
Having the “feeling” of your purpose succeeding is not the same as having it done. You need to learn skills and connect with the right people who will help you, and this is not so easy. Ever wondered why a majority of investors invest in businesses that already have traction? This is because they know that thinking and executing are two completely different things. A lot of people thought of UBER and only two got together and executed it.
When I quit my job, I had the following milestones:
The Department of Basic Education (Gauteng Library Section) assessed and approved my book “Your Gift is Bigger than a career” for inclusion in the Gauteng Department of Education Young Writers Catalogue 2018. As a result, hundreds of copies were bought by the department
Sold out copies of the book in bookstores in Durban, Johannesburg and Pretoria
I had all the research data for the online qualification quiz which we were still developing at the time
We won the best innovative program for the qualification quiz during the Innovate Durban Pitching Den Competition in June 2018. As a result, R50000 was secured for funding.
So, you can clearly see that I had a reason to believe that there was something in this “gift and purpose thing” from the momentum I was getting and there was no way that I couldn’t quit to pursue something which I felt was a moral obligation.
It is a luxury to pursue what makes you happy, it’s a moral obligation to pursue what is meaningful - Jordan Peterson
You don’t need to be making money when quitting
I believe that you don’t need to be making money to quit. All you need is momentum – people being interested in your product or service, people buying, enquiring or showing interest. Some people say that your side hustle needs to be making more money than the salary. That is utter nonsense and I have come to learn that people who say such stuff haven’t even started and are clueless. The truth is that there are very few people who branch out into their purpose who start out making money straight away. Even if you do make money you are forced to invest it back because there will be so many things and directions that you might want to take your endeavour – which needs money. This is why I told you in article 10 that you must give up the soft life so that you won’t be pilfering the money that is meant for your purpose on unnecessary needs and wants.
Wise words from King Solomon
“Sow your seed in the morning and do not be idle with your hands in the evening, for you do not know whether the morning or evening planting will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both alike will be good” – Ecclesiastes 11 verse 6.
I saw these verse fitting from King Solomon in order to drive this point on working on both your purpose and job until your purpose gets in momentum. There are many interpretations to this statement that you can find but, in my opinion, it simply means: in the morning go to your job so that you sustain yourself, and in the evening come home and work on your purpose because you do not know which is important at a particular time in your life (you do not know how long your it will take for your purpose to manifest itself).
The bacon and egg scenario
There are two animals involved in giving you a bacon and egg breakfast – the chicken and the pig. But in order to give you these, one had to sacrifice part of itself and one had to sacrifice itself entirely. The chicken sacrificed one of its eggs. The pig had to die.
If you want to see success in anything, like your purpose maybe, you have to be like the pig and die. My aim in this article is that before you become the bacon, you have to be like the chicken and give part of yourself first so that you have time to sharpen your skills that your purpose requires
How to give part of yourself - The egg scenario
Giving part of yourself might mean coming back from your place of employment and use this time to fully focus on something that is meaningful. You probably will give up some family time, TV, social media and other things that you would otherwise do. You might also need to work on weekends.
Giving part of yourself might also mean using your place of employment resources and time. This might include finishing your employment duties quicker so that you can pour your time into your dream, or staying after work to complete a specific task for your purpose.
The bacon scenario
After undertaking the egg scenario, you will get into momentum and have the urge to quit! You will want to be the pig and give your all to your purpose.
You cannot direct your purpose, it has to unfold. It unfolds in small layers each time you pour into it. On the other hand, your purpose is unexplainable. If you were to try to explain it to people and articulate what you want to do, you will fail because it is simply an idea in your head which hasn’t manifested yet. So do not be worried or discouraged if you cannot explain it to people yet because you will not make sense of it yourself initially.
Check out our tools to help you navigate your purpose here