business

Plan To Keep Your 9–5 As Long As Possible: Here’s Why

Jumping into solopreneurship comes with its list of pros and cons.

Anangsha Alammyan

Feb 17, 2024 • 5 min read

Photo by Humphrey Muleba on Unsplash

Jumping into solopreneurship comes with its list of pros and cons.

Bored of your 9-to-5 and can’t wait to make a full-time living by pursuing your passion?

Don’t do it. Not yet.

Let me tell you why.

According to a 2022 report by Microsoft, 76% of Gen Z and millennials and 63% of Gen X and older generations aspire to become their own bosses.

The competition is only increasing here, and you can’t ignore this before quitting a job that pays your bills.

Simply Business and Mental Health at Work conducted a survey on 749 self-employed business owners, and the results are concerning:

56% of them have experienced poor mental health in 12 months
41% agree irregular income negatively affects their well-being
45% of self-employed people suffer from insomnia
15% of business owners are worried about not being able to take a holiday.

It doesn’t mean there are no success stories, and you shouldn’t try chasing your dreams.

I quit my 9-to-5 in 2021 to become a full-time writer. 3 years later, I’m living my best life-

making more money than I ever dared to dream
travelling 5–6 times a year
having enough time to pursue new hobbies
waking up every day excited about my work.

I guess I’m one of the success stories of this self-employed world. But I didn’t quit my 9-to-5 on a whim. I made elaborate plans so I wouldn’t have to pressure my creativity to pay the bills.

In this post, I’ll show you how to plan your way to a self-employed life without putting too much burden on your passion.

Leverage the Paycheck to Prep Yourself

Even after being self-employed for 3 years consistently, I don’t have a stable income. That’s the biggest cons of switching to being your own boss.

I never have two months where the money in my bank is the same. Some months are incredible ($10k+), while in others, I barely have enough money to maintain my lifestyle (~$1k).

This much anxiety at the start of your self-employed life can lead to stress.

A better plan?

Stick to your 9-to-5 for a few more months until you have the capacity to maintain your lifestyle
Start learning or strategizing on how you can get started to pursue your passion
Build networks in your industry to create a supportive community
Leverage them as potential future clients or collaborators.

This will help you survive on your own even if you don’t have the best time financially once you get out of your day job.

Treat Your Salary as Another Income Stream

One of the key pillars of the self-employed life is having multiple income streams so you don’t rely too much on one.

Think of your salary as an income stream. It’ll only smoothen your transition to being self-employed.

Here’s how:

Grow your savings corpus to cover at least 6 months of living expenses before making the switch
Create an emergency fund for unexpected health or family expenses
Invest in your side hustle for upskilling, marketing, etc., to make it big as a freelancer.

Collect More Lived Experiences

If your passion is to be a creator, working on your job will give you more stories to create content around.

Make it your unfair advantage for creating impactful stories that’ll leave a lasting impression on your audience.

I’ve written stories about:

Taking online classes during the pandemic
Facing discrimination as a woman at my workplace
Living through many more stories that came straight from the experiences of working at my job.

Some of these articles remain, to date, my best-performing pieces. They help me stand out among other creators and form a genuine connection with my readers.

Look for Reasons To Step Out of the House

Signing up for a self-employed life might sound fun and empowering. But it has some not-so-fun parts too, like:

Sitting all day in front of a computer
Taking full responsibility for deadlines, mistakes, or failures
Losing all social life.

Once you finally switch to the self-employed life you’ve always dreamt of, you’ll hardly have a reason to step out of your place.

No more commuting to the office, no weekend plans (at least in the beginning). No way to make friends or have a social circle.

You don’t want it to take a toll on your mental and emotional well-being.

Enjoy the best of both worlds for as long as you can until you finally switch to the life of your dreams.

Don’t Quit Your 9-to-5 to Follow Your Passion on a Whim: Final Words

Still confused between the boring yet stable 9–5 and your passionate calling? You’re not alone.

We all go through this internal debate today as social media is full of successful entrepreneurial journeys. Both have their pros and cons.

A job offers stability and security while doing your own thing gives you creative freedom and fulfilment.

It’s best to take the middle path that allows you to pay bills and pursue your passion without compromising your lifestyle.

Here’s how you can securely plan to opt for a self-employed life by holding on to your day job a little longer:

Leverage the financial stability of your 9–5 to strategize a smooth transition to being self-employed full-time
Change your approach towards your day job by seeing it as another income stream
Collect real-life experiences to build your idea bank that you could use to create content around
Enjoy the perks of being in a job that you’ll miss out on after being self-employed:

social gatherings and interactions
stepping out of the house every day
meeting and learning from new people and their unique experiences.

This same plan gave me the confidence to switch from a government job to becoming a full-time writer.

It happened because I didn’t rush to quit, no matter how tough it got at some point. Instead, I chose a more practical and reliable approach to creating my dream life.

For more such stories, join my email family of 5000+ people for insights on creativity, productivity, and writing to create your dream life.

More on transitioning to the self-employed life here —