You Don’t Have to Quit Your Job to Chase Your Dreams

Before you say “I quit” review these 5 reasons why you don’t need to do that

Quit your job. Follow Your Dreams. Live your life to the fullest.

Whether we talk about self-help or productivity books or listening to life stories of successful people, these unseemingly cliché pieces of advice are often repeated again and again. This is a mantra we often hear whenever we’re talking about big success.

We had always heard about how highly risk-takers are successful? Or how they quit their job just to pursue their dreams?

We idolize icons like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates for having the audacity to drop out of school and go for broke, holing in the garage to will their technological visions into existence. We analyze their story based on what we’re told, without knowing the reality.

Bill Gates spent a year at Harvard after selling his first software program, and Larry Page and Sergey Brin waited two years after building their search engine to leave Stanford and launch Google.

Quitting isn’t the best thing to do always. It can cost money, time, make it harder for you to get hired if you don’t have another job lined up, and you may not know if your plan will even work out.

Before you say “I quit” review these reasons why you don’t need to quit:

#1 A Job Can = A Dream Coming True

“…because my job is not allowing me to pursue my passion. I want to quit it.”

We often hear people saying that, blaming their jobs for not being able to pursue the life of their dreams. Take a minute and think deeply about it.

Do you really have to quit your job to follow your passion? Does your job really hold you back from pursuing your dreams?

There are many people whose dreams come true through employment. Some people are just not wired to work for themselves and do their best work when working within a team of people under the leadership of someone else.

A cousin of mine wanted to be an entrepreneur but ended up taking a job. Interestingly by taking that job he learned the marketing skills he needed to market his products which helped him to start his own company.

This is a path that many people would choose to consider. It helps to re-skill and switch the fields in which you work but could help you to follow your dream while remaining in the security of employment.

#2 You Do Need A Backup Plan

Do you have enough money in the bank to fund your dreams without a paycheck coming in? Do you know how much time it’ll take for you to finally earn from your work?

No. You don’t!

This is a myth that success requires extreme risk-taking. And as much as successful people seem to crave risk, they really prefer to avoid it. I know “playing safe” doesn’t sound as sexy as “chase your dreams”…but it is important.

“Quitting your full-time job to start a company is like proposing marriage on the first date … The most durable businesses are typically started by people who play it safe.” — Adam Grant

There is a fascinating study conducted by Joseph Raffiee and Jie Feng, in which they asked a simple question: When people start a business, are they better off keeping or quitting their day jobs?

The study showed that entrepreneurs who had kept their jobs had 33% lower odds of failure than those who quit. In other words, you’re not just better off keeping your day job, you’re way better off keeping it.

It may not be a coincidence that Phil Knight spent 5 years selling running shoes before leaving his full-time accounting job to start Nike and Markus Persson kept his day job for a full year before committing to Minecraft full-time, eventually selling it to Microsoft for $2.5billion (£1.7bn).

Keeping your job gives you the time and resources to refine. If you are committed to entrepreneurship, you should be concerned about quarterly results. That means putting all your eggs in the basket where they’re most likely to hatch quickly.

#3 Success ≠ Extreme Risk-Taking

“The best entrepreneurs are not risk maxi-mizers, they take the risk out of risk-taking “— Linda Rottenberg

Successful people do not necessarily are risk-takers, but instead better at evaluating risk. We think that entrepreneurs or successful people are all “risk-takers” and that you need to go “all in” to be successful.

This belief is embedded so deeply in our cultural psyche that we rarely even stop to think about it.

This misconception is proved false by Adam Grant’s book Originals:

“Entrepreneurs do not necessarily are risk-takers, but instead better at evaluating risk and hedging their bets.”

Adam Grant once asked Neil(founder of Warby Parker) that — “If they truly believed in Warby Parker, they should have dropped out to focus every waking hour to make it happen?”

Neil responded — “Warby Parker wasn’t the basket that I wanted to put all my eggs into. We want to hedge our bets, we’re not sure if it’s good ideas and we have no clue whether it will succeed, so we’ve been working on it our spare time during the school year.”

Grant then stated that “They didn’t have enough skin in the game. In my mind, they were destined to fail because they played it safe instead of betting the farm. But in fact, this is exactly why they succeeded.”

#4 Big Changes Aren’t Always Good

“I took the leap.”

Whether you read business books, listen to any person’s career story, or take advice from your successful relatives — you’ll be most likely hear this same phrase over and over again.

When we talk about big success whether in business or career we love to repeat this phrase. It’s a tale of risk and reward, one we hear constantly from successful entrepreneurs, movie stars, and wealthy peoples.

But it’s a lie…a big fat lie!

Blockbuster was the top video-rental company in the US. But when Viacom purchased them in 1991, they seemed to lose their way. They weren’t paying attention to what mattered to their customers and in 2010 Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy with almost $1 billion in debt because it failed to keep up with competitors like Netflix.

It is true that there comes a time to make the leap.

But it isn’t necessary that big change will always bring good with them, they can bring bad as well. It goes both ways. Whether it’s something you’ve been expecting or something that comes completely out of the blue, big changes can have a huge impact on your life. They can trigger distress or make it worse.

#5 Success Doesn’t Require Inordinate Amount Of Time

Lie: To be successful you need to spend an inordinate amount of time to get there.

This is a big misconception that to build a sustainable business or pursue your passion, you need to spend an inordinate amount of time to get there. We deeply embedded ourselves with the belief that in order to do something we need to quit first what we are doing.

While it’s true that a lot of effort needs to be delivered, what matters the most is consistent effort over time. Most people undervalue this concept of compound interest.

The truth is…Success doesn’t require an inordinate amount of time.

But don’t day jobs distract us from doing our best work?

Common sense suggests that creative accomplishments can’t flourish without big windows of time and energy, and companies can’t thrive without intensive effort. Having a sense of security in one realm gives us the freedom to be original in another.

By covering our bases financially, we escape the pressure to publish half-baked books, sell shoddy art, or launch untested businesses.

Here are such examples:-

• When Bill Gates sold a new software program as a sophomore, he waited an entire year before leaving Harvard.
• After inventing the original Apple I, Steve Wozniak started the company with Steve Jobs in 1976 but continued working full time in his engineering job at Hewlett-Packard until 1977.

The founders who kept their day jobs and dipped a toe into entrepreneurial waters were more risk-averse, less self-confident, and less committed than their peers who dove in headfirst. Being risk-averse led them to look carefully before leaping in.

We all have multiple passions and dreams. And life is too short not to pursue them. But there’s no need to cut from one scene to another immediately. People may think it’s cool to be a risk-taker, but it’s much cooler to come out the other side successful.

So, next time you have a big idea, don’t go in all guns blazing. Start it as a hobby and see if it takes off. Keep working until you’re in a place where it makes sense to make it full-time.