The Messy Reality of Leaving My Corporate Job

What leaving my corporate job actually looked like — the messy reality

For over twenty years I worked in the travel industry and in the early days I loved it but as time went on my endless desire to achieve pushed me over the edge

I'm an enneagram type 3 - the achiever, so I climbed the corporate ladder. I strived. I pushed. I became a Learning & Development Executive for a well known holiday company and from the outside it probably looked like I was doing everything right, it looked like a had a good job and was doing so well. 

But inside something was slowly breaking.

Because the reality was that I wasn't made for that world. I realise that now. I wasn't made for a place where you had to apply for annual leave a year in advance only to be told no. Where freedom was something you had to earn and schedule and justify. I had tried so hard over the years, doing what I thought you were supposed to do in life - climb the ladder, make more money, be successful

But in truth the striving was destroying me.

I had the Sunday night dread that starts creeping in on a Saturday. The Monday mornings where you smile and show up and put on a show while something inside you is quietly dying.

My toilet breaks were my saviour

I used to go to the toilet at work just to get five minutes alone. And while I was in there I would close my eyes and visualise myself handing in my notice. Over and over again. It was the only thing that got me through the day.

I was reading Louise Hay at the time — You Can Heal Your Life — so I was blessing everything. My colleagues. The ones I liked and the ones I didn't. The building. My boss. Everything I could think of. Anything to get through.

I lurched from project to project feeling like I wasn't doing a good job — even though I was. I turned down redundancy when it was offered because I was so deep in fear I couldn't think straight.

I beat myself up about this for years. How could I have been so stupid? But I wasn't stupid — I was frozen. The money from that redundancy would have secured me financially and funded the business but I was stuck in freeze mode. I remember my boss ringing me and telling me my job was safe - I was so disappointed. I was so hoping i'd be chosen for redundancy (I could have applied for it) when I eventually handed my notice is she said "ah I can see what you had that reaction abut the redundancy"

I was going through the motions. I was physically sick — fibroids, anaemia, anorexia. My body was screaming at me to do something about my situation.

But somewhere in the middle of all of that mess I made a decision.

July. I'm leaving in July. That's it. That's the date.

I had £400 saved. Not enough. I had only just started making soap so I didn't really have a business yet. Not enough. I had no real plan. Definitely not enough.

But I had my date. And I had that quiet, terrified, unshakeable knowing that I had to go.

The day I handed my notice in I felt two things simultaneously — complete relief and absolute terror. On my last day I cried and cried. Full of fear. Knowing it was the right thing to do, but doubting myself

And then on my last day in work a butterfly flew in through the window, flew round the room and flew out again. I looked up the meaning of butterflies - transformation. It was the sign I needed.

My plan had always been to get a part time job while I built up my business, but I handed my notice in before I had really even started looking. Then the week I handed my notice in my sister rang and asked if I'd like to work a few shifts in her café, she was opening a restaurant and couldn't be there so she wanted someone to watch over the cafe. I hadn't asked. She just called. I took the leap and the universe gave me a helping hand. 

It was messy. I was messy. It was terrifying and uncertain. I was still recovering from my eating disorder and ill health, I had a lot of healing to do but I just knew I couldn't do this life anymore. 

I stuck to my July plan. And I went out into the great unknown of making my own money and building my own life.

And slowly — gradually, the way these things always happen — everything began to shift.

If you are in the toilet at work right now visualising handing in your notice — I see you. I really do.

And I want you to know that the messy leap is still a leap.

Was it the best way to do it? Possibly not. I could have taken the redundancy. Saved more money. Built the business up properly first. Created a sensible plan.

But I'm the kind of person who goes after what she wants in her own messy, imperfect, terrified way. It doesn't have to be perfect. 

And fourteen years on — here I am.

Doing what I love. Helping other women find their purpose and take their own leap into a life that feels good. More freedom. More soul. More of what they were actually put here to do.

The messy leap got me here. It can get you there too. 🌸

If something in this story is speaking to you — if you are ready to make your own leap but don't know how to get there — I created She Rises for exactly this moment. CLICK HERE to find out more