Scott Berkun

When is it time to quit a job to follow a dream?

Andrew Rosen of Jobacle, one of my kickstarter supporters for Mindfire, had this request for a blog post:

How do you know it is time to quit your job and put yourself into a project you believe in on a full-time basis (head and heart)?

I try to live life backwards. It’s a cliché, but many cliché’s are cliché’s because they have some truth in them. I do periodically imagine myself on my deathbed looking back. What do I want to see?

When I do that, answers to questions like this are easy. The time is now.

Many people spend their entire lives with a dream they keep in their back pocket, expecting there to be a day with no distractions or conflicting priorities. In that fantasy, there is a day that will come, on its own, when following a dream will be the easiest choice in the world to make, and everyone, and everything in the universe will point towards the dream. That day never happens. That day has probably never happened for anyone. You have to make that day happen for yourself, often in spite of some reasonable advice to the contrary.

Most people reading this post live comfortable lives. No matter what choice you make, you will live a reasonably comfortable life, historically speaking. Review Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – no matter what you do, you’ll likely be ok. You have the power to take a big risk or two over the course of a lifetime and survive, or possibly thrive. But never taking a chance? Never making sacrifices to find out what’s behind that dream or what’s on the other side of that fantasy? Over the long view of a lifetime, that approach makes little sense.

If you want specific plans for how to quit, see: Should I quit my job now.

• 
  If you liked this post, you'll love Mindfire: Big Ideas for Curious Minds, a new best-of collection of Berkun's famous essays and posts from 2000-2011.
  
  
  Buy now on Amazon.com $8.69 (print / kindle), Barnes & Noble, & iBookstore.
  

• If you liked this there's more: please subscribe to this feed or follow me on twitter

• Most popular related posts:
  
  Should I quit my job now?
  How I found my passion
  PM-Clinic: Where to put the business folks
  Live webcast, in 45 minutes (10am PST), today
  Design games (or learning and playing at the same time)
  

• 3 Comments » | Posted Wednesday, December 7th, 2011 at 12:30 pm in Mindfire, philosophy