I don’t know about you, but I’m really big on quotes. Sometimes you come across one that just hits you where you need to be hit. Below are some that really stuck with me over the past few years and helped me make the decision to finally quit my corporate job. So, without further ado, here are ten motivational quotes to quit your job and work to live your best life. Enjoy.
10 MOTIVATIONAL QUIT YOUR JOB QUOTES
“And then there is the most dangerous risk of all – the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.”
– Randy Kosimar, The Monk and the Riddle: The Education of a Silicon Valley Entrepreneur
Of course, we all have to put in work now to reap rewards later. And even though tomorrow is never promised, it is likely, so we still need to plan and save for the future. But there is a balance.
When I finally quit my corporate desk job without a plan, a lot of people told me how brave I was being to take such a risk.
But to me, that wasn’t really the risk. Staying in that job was the risk. Everyday I was still in that job, I was taking the biggest risk of all in my mind. I was risking away my opportunity to spend my life doing the things I want to do.
“A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.”
– John le Carre
I love the irony of this quote. We view the typical life of getting in a car every morning, driving to a school or an office building, and sitting in a chair all day until driving back home as a pretty “safe” life. Anything besides that, we view as dangerous or uncertain.
This is especially true for someone like me, who left my job to make more room in my life for travel. Traveling is “dangerous!” My mother (who hates my love of travel) always likes to remind me why I’m asking for trouble by traveling, insinuating that my previous life behind a desk is “safe.”
But what exactly does dangerous mean? According to Dictionary.com, it means “full of danger or risk.” Well, didn’t we just read the greatest risk of all is spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later? In that case, life behind a desk sounds rather dangerous to me!
“Most people will choose unhappiness over uncertainty.”
– Tim Ferriss, Four-Hour Work Week
The reaction I got when I quit my job shocked me. I expected no one to understand and for some to even be upset. But I actually received amazing support. So many of my peers said things like “Good for you,” “I’m happy for you that you’re leaving,” and “I’m jealous; I want to quit too!”
It became clear that those making these comments were unhappy in their jobs. So to see me resign and, in doing so, reveal that I was unhappy in my job, too – they understood and related to that.
But going back to the other response I mentioned above – that I was “so brave” – it was clear they did not relate to the decision to actually leave – at least not without a sure thing lined up. In other words, they were not willing to remove the unhappiness (even though they were fully aware they were unhappy) in exchange for uncertainty.
How about you? Are you perhaps prioritizing certainty over happiness?
“‘Someday’ is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you.”
– Tim Ferriss, Four-Hour Work Week
Quite frankly, “someday” is wishful thinking. The problem with “someday” is that there is zero way to hold yourself accountable to it.
You can never fail at doing something by “someday.” Because “someday” always exists – as long as you are alive, that is. You see, you can literally only fail at doing something by “someday” when you’re dead, at which point you obviously can’t even care anymore that you failed.
Change that someday to “one day.” Then give that “one day” a specific date. (Otherwise, it’s still just “someday.”)
Now, you can at least fail at it. So now, you can hold yourself accountable to it.
“Many a false step was made by standing still.”
– Tim Ferriss, Four-Hour Work Week
Most of my life, I’ve been a pretty risk averse person. I hate making mistakes, overanalyze if I will regret something before I do it, and seek out multiple sources of information before making a decision.
In short; I never want to take the wrong step.
And I’ve noticed that a lot of other people are like this, too. A lot of us prefer to allow time to pass until we decide what the perfect, correct step is. We fear making a false step.
But what if in allllll that time we are standing still, just thinking about what the right step is, we could have already taken a step, decided it was wrong, then gone back, taken the right step, and moved forward. We probably would end up at whatever destination we are seeking a lot more quickly!
“Liberty means responsibility. That is why most people dread it.”
– George Bernard Shaw
When I was a kid, my dad always advised me that I should have my own company when I grow up. He said, “There is nothing better than being your own boss.” (For context, he is not his own boss).
I would always respond, “Nah, I don’t want to be my own boss. That’s too scary! I’d much rather have someone else make all the big decisions, just tell me what to do, and I get a secure, regular pay check.”
(It is of course super ironic that I eventually proceed to do a total 180 in about sixteen months of working in corporate.)
You see, as a young kid, I already realized there was a trade off between lack of responsibility and freedom.
But I don’t think most of us actually ever realize that. Once we all start “the real world,” we are very unanimous in wishing we had more freedom over our time. But the truth is, most of us are forgoing that freedom we claim to want and instead choosing to enjoy lack of total responsibility.
“At some point, most of us reach a place where we’re afraid to fail, where we instinctively avoid failure and stick only to what is placed in front of us or only what we’re already good at. This confines us and stifles us. We can be truly successful only at something we’re willing to fail at. If we’re unwilling to fail, then we’re unwilling to succeed.”
– Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck
We tend to stick to what we know. Even if what we know isn’t necessarily all that great, we tend to stick to “the devil we know over the devil we don’t.” We prefer to follow the path already taken by everyone else, because we know already how it goes. We’ve watched everyone else already take this path, and we’ve seen that they all turned out fine.
In other words, it has a low risk of failure.
Which is absolutely fine! It is absolutely fine to want to live a very ordinary life.
But why, then, does everyone seem to dream of an extraordinary life? Of immense “success?” Of wild and unique experiences?
There are no high rewards without high risks. And “if you always do what you’ve always done, then you will always get what you’ve always gotten.”
If you want something different, something extraordinary, you have to risk failure. There is no growth within one’s comfort zone, because there is no failure there.
“It’s worth remembering that for any change to happen in your life, you must be wrong about something. If you’re sitting there, miserable day after day, then that means you’re already wrong about something major in your life, and until you’re able to question yourself to find it, nothing will change.”
– Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck
When we feel miserable or unhappy about a situation, we automatically view that feeling as a bad sign. We clearly have made a wrong choice that got us into this suboptimal situation. And no one likes being wrong.
Sometimes we try to fight the feeling and force the suboptimal situation to feel right again. We try to give it time to change. We try to tweak it a little bit. Other times, we simply accept that we made a wrong choice and that there is nothing we can do about it now besides trudging on in misery.
Don’t ignore that misery. Don’t try to mask it or to persist through it. That feeling you’ve been given is a sign that something needs to change.
Be thankful you have that feeling, because not everyone gets it.
There are plenty of others in your exact same suboptimal situation who feel perfectly content. Maybe they don’t realize their strengths aren’t being put to good use. Maybe they don’t recognize that they are being taken for granted or advantage of. Maybe it hasn’t registered to them that they are putting their dreams on hold. And maybe they will only realize all this once it is too late.
But not you. You know you are miserable, and that misery is your opportunity to change course towards something much, much better for you. Something where you are not just settling, just surviving, but rather thriving.
As they say, “ignorance is bliss.” And, more than once, I have found myself slightly jealous of those people who are able to go through the normal “American dream” of a life with blissful unawareness to all the problems I found corporate to have.
But I continue reminding myself that the misery I felt in that situation gave me the opportunity to leave it and strive for something better for myself. And for that opportunity, I should be thankful.
“People wait all week for Friday, all year for summer, all life for happiness.”
– Unknown
I can’t remember whom, but I remember an adult telling me as a kid that we should never say “I can’t wait until ___.” They said that this was basically wishing away the time in between now and whatever thing we can’t wait for.
For some reason, that always stuck with me. Of course, I do say things like “Can’t wait to see you!” But I generally pay attention to when I feel myself can’t-waiting for something large to be over with.
This is ultimately what led to my epiphany that corporate America wasn’t for me.
I realized one day that I was essentially setting myself up to “wait all life for happiness.” I wasn’t unhappy. But it dawned on me that I had been living life on a pre-made path which built up to some vague destination people called happiness.
I did the good grades in high school in order to attend a good college. I attended the good college in order to land a good job. And now that I was in that good job, it was kind of like… hmm, ok, now what? I don’t feel like I’ve “arrived” anywhere yet.
Oh! Right, well, I guess I’m supposed to perform well in order to get promoted. Ok, then what next? Perform even better in order to get promoted again? Ok, and after that? Promoted again?
I suddenly realized I was never going to actually ever “arrive” anywhere. It was all just a carrot on a stick!
We all say we want to “be present” or “live in the moment.” But are most of us actually doing that? I know I absolutely was was not doing that in corporate. I was always waiting for the day to end, for the weekend to come, for my vacation to start. I was squandering the precious present moment of my life by continuously wishing some point in the future would come faster.
Do you do the same? Do you find yourself dreading Monday and waiting for Friday every single week? If so, that might be your sign that things need to change!
“Don’t waste your life living someone else’s dream. Don’t try to emulate the people who came before you to the exclusion of everything else, contorting into a shape that doesn’t fit.”
– Tim Cook, Apple CEO, Stanford University 2019 Commencement Address
Just because something works for someone else – or even for 90% of everyone else – doesn’t mean it works for you. I absolutely did not like corporate, but that does not mean I think no one should work for a corporation. Maybe some people love it there! I just am not one of those people.
In corporate, I filtered what I said and how I said it. I feigned eagerness to mask the elephant in the room that we were all only there for a paycheck at the end of the day. I regularly had to act based on perception of reality as opposed to reality itself.
I was absolutely contorting into a shape.
But for others, the corporate shape might fit them like a glove! I definitely noticed those around me who loved the competition of moving up the hierarchy, or who practically squealed with glee that they were hand selected to stay late (we weren’t paid overtime, mind you) for the oh-so important project.
Just do what works for you. And remember that it may require a process of trial and error to figure out whatever it is that works for you. Do not be afraid of making missteps or changing course. It’s all a part of the journey of this thing called life!
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?
Ready to quit the job you hate yet?! Will you be saving any of these as your mobile phone background images? Let me know which quotes resonated with you.
Did I miss any good ones? Share your favorites below – I’m always looking for more good quotes to keep motivating me.
And if you enjoyed this more contemplative read as opposed to my typical travel guides, you might also like this read on my lessons learned one year after quitting corporate.
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