You’ve dreamed of quitting your job and starting a business for years. But you haven’t done it yet. The dream isn’t dead though, or you wouldn’t be reading this.

Let’s start by acknowledging that you face strong headwinds. Leaving corporate means walking away from the steady paycheck, good benefits, and job title you worked years to earn. Not only that, but societal programming has told you, the “safe” path through life was that of being an employee. This programming has been so ingrained in people, that even the thought that it’s wrong leads to massive cognitive dissonance.

And let’s remember also, that those at the top of the corporate power and money pyramid in society want it that way. They want you to be a consumer and an employee so you are beholden to them for your happiness and the job you need to pay for it.

That being said, there is a path to freedom, to fulfillment, and to success that diverges from the corporate path you’re on now. But taking that path should not be done without proper preparation.

You’ll need to equip yourself with the right mindset and practical plan so once you set down that path, you increase your chances of success while at the same time reducing your risk. If you’re going to travel in a blizzard, you’d better dress properly and pack the right provisions.

Signs You’re Ready to Quit Your Corporate Job

Sometimes the signs are obvious. Sometimes they are subtle. But most people who eventually quit their job to start a business can point to a moment when they realized the corporate path was an illusion. They had an awakening.

Here are a few signs YOUR awakening is upon you:

1. You find yourself constantly bored, drained, and lacking energy

If you finish most workdays feeling depleted and uninspired, your mind and body are screaming at you. They’re telling you this isn’t working.

Corporate work grinds you down with sameness. Same meetings. Same politics. Same pointless tasks that don’t matter. When your work doesn’t align with who you actually are, it drains the life out of you. Your eyes glaze over. You’re tired all the time, not because you’re working hard, but because you’re working against yourself.

If you feel that way, listen to your body and mind. Sure, everyone will have a bad day now and then, but if these “bad” days are a chronic drain instead of a temporary slump, your body is flashing warning signs at you. Will you heed them?

2. You have the “Sunday Scaries” or excessively think about hating your job

If you find your stomach sinking and your mood darkening on Sunday afternoon as the realization dawns upon you that you’re staring down the barrel of another week in your corporate job, something is absolutely wrong.

According to a LinkedIn survey, 80% of professionals experience the “Sunday Scaries”: anxiety about the upcoming work week with Millennials and Gen Z workers reporting the highest rates. That means the vast majority of working professionals dread Monday. That’s not normal. That’s a societal crisis. But that doesn’t mean it has to be YOUR crisis anymore.

Beyond Sunday dread, if you find yourself constantly thinking or complaining about your job, especially outside of working hours, you’re living a life misaligned with your truth. Bruce Lee said it best: “Be like water.” Water flows naturally, adapting to its environment without force or resistance. When you’re aligned with your truth, life flows. When you’re not, everything feels like struggle.

Life is precious. Dreading five out of every seven days is no way to live it.

3. Your health suffers

If your mental and/or physical health is suffering as a result of having a corporate job, can there be any more emphatic sign that something is gravely wrong? In the last two sections, we’ve touched on the idea that you are living a life misaligned with your core truth. Doing so is much harder on your mind and body than living one in alignment with who you are.

By fighting your truth, you are essentially living your life trying to walk upstairs on a down escalator. Your body is a machine, and like any other machine, if it is taxed at the redline of its capability for an extended period of time, it will eventually break down.

And another facet of corporate life that also conspires to break down your body is stress.

The American Psychological Association reports that, “workplace stress also remains at a concerning level, with 77% of workers having reported experiencing work-related stress in the last month.”

This chronic workplace stress is not only unpleasant, but dangerous. Research shows work stress is associated with increased risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes. And it’s also been implicated in everything from high blood pressure to gastrointestinal distress to anxiety and depression.

Human beings were never designed to endure a constant slow drip of stress on a daily basis. Sure, our ancestors got short term high doses of stress while hunting a wild boar, but those were over quickly, and then went away. The stress of the corporate world never goes away. It’s like a slow drip of rat poison going into your veins.

Health is always more important than money. It doesn’t matter how much you earn, without health it’s irrelevant.

The signs are all there. Your mind and body are trying to tell you something. It’s time for a different path. But how do you make this happen? That’s exactly the challenge I created Corporate Liberation to overcome and the purpose of the six-step framework I created in my book, Liberation Day: Quit Your Job and Escape the Corporate Trap.

My Roadmap: 6 Steps from Corporate Employee to Entrepreneur

Step 1: Outrage

Most corporate employees constantly complain about their jobs. It’s possible to do so for decades without taking any action. But Outrage is different. Here you come to the point of recognizing there is something wrong with corporate life, exactly what those problems are, and then put them into the greater context of just how precious your life is. Coming to a place of outrage is the process of coming to the conclusion that your status quo is no longer acceptable. Once you get here, you WILL make a change because doing nothing (an action equal to doing something) is no longer acceptable. The energy created from building a deep outrage acts as fuel to propel you through the whole journey to freedom. It’s what keeps you from turning back when things get tough. Without it, it’s just too easy to revert to the safety of what you know, keeping you stuck in place.

Step 2: Inspired Preparation

Let’s face it, to successfully escape the corporate world forever, you’re going to need some really good ideas. You need to tap into a higher realm within your mind. You need inspired thought to find them. While you’ve undoubtedly accessed this thought at various times in your past, it’s not something that can always be called upon. Instead, it most often comes to you indirectly when you’ve created the conditions to optimize your mind and body. By simply quieting your mind and getting out of your own way, you give yourself the chance to find inspiration. Specific techniques can help you focus your mind and body to increase your chances of finding inspired thought. The good news is these ideas often lie within you if you’ll only allow yourself to discover them. This can help you not only find the right type of business to start, but also how to make your vision a reality.

Step 3: Commitment

While outrage is a critical first element in quitting your job, it will not change your path on its own. You need to combine it with an ironclad commitment backed by action to create lasting change. Thus, it’s important early in your entrepreneurial journey to commit to your goal. Commitment is a process rather than a discrete event. I’ve developed a systematic path to commitment. It involves coming to terms with the price of your commitment, and whether you’ll do so today or not. It also ensures your commitment aligns with both you and your spouse. It requires you to identify what obstacles stand in your way and systematically break them down. Finally, it requires you to make a written commitment to yourself. It’s not an easy step to take, but not taking it and ultimately doing nothing is far costlier.

Step 4: Reframe Your Mindset

If you’re going to become an entrepreneur, you can’t think like a corporate employee anymore. You need to master key mindset shifts before you ever make your leap to ensure you are ready when you do. In ‘Liberation Day’ I discuss five key mindset shifts that can have a major impact on your entrepreneurial journey.

I’d be delighted to have you read this section of my book for free in a standalone resource I’ve created called the Mindset Shift PDF. Simply register here and it’ll be emailed to you immediately.

Step 5: Practical Planning

No matter how great your ideas, how deep your commitment, or how profound your mindset, you can’t create an effective business without a comprehensive practical plan. It all begins with alignment. You need to analyze and confirm that your potential business is right for you and fits your needs and wants. It also must solve problems for your potential customer and be differentiated in the broader marketplace. Then you need to do a comprehensive business plan to first prove to yourself that your business strategy is viable, and then to others if you seek funding or investment. Next, you need to deeply analyze your personal financial situation and plan for what a future as an entrepreneur looks like. Ultimately you need to calculate your financial runway: how much money you have and how much time these resources give you to ramp your business. Then you need detailed exit and operational plans to ensure the tactical steps get done that make your idea a reality. You can never completely eliminate risk, but by planning rigorously, you can certainly reduce it.

I cover the entire practical planning process in great detail in Modules 6-9 of the Corporate Liberation Masterclass. This includes comprehensive business planning (which I also offer as a standalone course called Business Planning Blueprint), personal financial planning, and exit planning. Learn more about these courses here.

Step 6: Liberation

Once you’ve done all the planning, the final step is to make the leap and actually do it. Liberation Day is upon you. The period leading up to this momentous day can be anxiety-ridden and second thoughts are commonplace. So it’s important to prepare yourself mentally for this moment. Whether it’s stress management techniques, visualization, or working with a coach through these challenges, what matters most is that you go through with it. Because without this final action, all your planning is wasted.