Are you afraid to leave your 9-5?

If you want to start a solopreneurship but you're worried about leaving your secure 9-5 job, this one's for you.

Jan 15, 2025

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An older post on X/Twitter recently stopped me dead in my tracks.

Here it is:

Unfortunately, Edge’s story isn’t the first of its kind that I’ve heard recently. And it won’t be the last.

The truth is, too many companies view their employees as expendable assets.

If the big wigs at the top think they can save a few bucks by canning someone on their payroll, they won’t hesitate.

As long as you work for someone else, your job security cannot be guaranteed.

I found that out the hard way when my youth worker contract wasn’t renewed in 2018. I didn’t know it at the time, but it would be the last role I’d ever have in someone else’s employ.

Much like Edge’s situation, it came as a shock to me.

I was doing a good job. Things were moving in the right direction. But my employers wanted to spend my salary on a building refurbishment instead, so that was that.

A necessary evil?

In hindsight, it was the best thing that could’ve happened (though it sure as heck didn’t feel like it for quite a while).

I spent a couple of years in freelancing limbo, still suffering occasional ghostings from businesses I’d come to rely on for work.

Still no job security, still no peace. I did get to work in my PJs, though, which was different.

It wasn’t until I stumbled across an idea for a blog based on one of my hobbies (hiking in the mountains) that a way out of freelance limbo started to take shape.

That blog became a fully-fledged website, which became a marketing platform, which is now my primary income stream. Hard work, but worth it.

I’m now a solopreneur, and the only person who can fire me is me (and I’m not going to do that anytime soon).

I only wish someone had told me this working situation was possible several years ago. I’d have jumped straight to it and saved myself a lot of sleepless nights.

The job security myth

Here’s the point I’m circling: if you’re worried about leaving a secure 9-5 job role to start a solopreneurship, don’t, because a secure 9-5 job role doesn’t truly exist.

All your friends striding confidently along office hallways wearing power suits and winning smiles could be told tomorrow that the company’s being “restructured” and their service has been greatly appreciated.

Awful.

Don’t let the fear of stepping away from the familiar stop you from exploring the unfamiliar, especially if you’re not satisfied where you are. Life’s way too short to be unhappy in your job role.

Please hear this, though: do not ditch your 9-5 on a whim to chase a soloprenuerial dream, because a) I found myself in a similarly-unstable situation in 2018 and I can tell you, it absolutely sucks, and b) you don’t need to leave your 9-5 job to start a solopreneurship.

Ease into it. Take baby steps. Research first. Consider every angle. But while you’re doing all that, get the train moving along the tracks.

The sooner you begin making incremental progress, the sooner you can start planning for how you’ll step back from your role working under someone else.

And trust me, the sight of those green solopreneur shoots poking up from the soil is seriously motivating. And addictive.

Get the train moving

The first step on the journey to self-employment and potential lifelong job security is always the most daunting one. But it can also be the most thrilling.

If working for yourself is something you’d love to do, why not start today?

Try this:

Grab a page and write down exactly where you’d like to be in 5 years job-wise, if everything ran smoothly.
Below it, write down your biggest objection to starting down the path to that scenario.
And below that, write down one small, actionable step you could take right now that would start your train moving along the tracks.

If you need some help getting started, you should read this next.