What If You Could Just Quit Your Job (Freedom)

At some point, we all dream about being able to quit our job to do what we want, with who we want and where we want. If we aren’t in a job we love, it can be hard not to daydream about ‘something else’ while our boss shoves more TPS report requests on our desk (watch the movie if you haven’t). 

So, how do you know if you’re one of those individuals? And what does it take to attain that freedom? In this article, I break it down based on my own experience, achieving that in under a year, watching my friends doing the same, and teaching people around the world how to build a little online, drop serving business that funds their freedom.

Daydreaming is where it ends for most of us. The security, contentment, and ‘it’s not so bad’ situation keeps you locked in place. But have you ever wondered about those people that go beyond that? Building something that allows them to just quit their job and live a life of freedom - doing what, where, and with who they want…

How could that even be possible? Why would people want to do that? 

It all comes down to freedom vs. security. We all have a certain need for both. For those that have a greater need for security, going the normal route feels much more comfortable, feeling content with this they actually feel happy to stay in this ‘not so bad’ situation (apparently anyway).

Those who have a greater need for freedom don’t feel content with their current situation. It’s more painful for them to stay in that job they hate or study something they don’t care about versus the pain of going after that dream they have. Why work in a job you hate when you can just choose not to. You could just do the thing that would allow you not to have to work a job in a place you hate, so you can buy more stuff to fill up your average apartment in that ‘ok’ part of town.

Instead of going along with societal norms, they push through the pain of that initial take-off period. Having everyone around them telling them they can’t do it. Whilst at the same time wondering if they can do it, seeing others do it while they seem to run on the spot with no progress made. They push through all of that, to go through the process, change their beliefs, and take massive action towards attaining their dreams. They do it and so they get there.

Sadly, this isn’t the common reality, most people don’t even know that it’s possible. That’s because, at every level of society, we’re all pushed in the same direction. Get a good education, find a nice job, settle down and spend all your money on stuff. Then, if we do try to break outside of that norm, everyone pulls us back in from fear of losing us. Alongside us not feeling like we can achieve it anyway, so we decide to stay in our nice little content zone.

Is the norm really the best there is and has ever been? Should we just accept what is and be happy with our lot in life? Is it really that bad… well...

A Perfect World?

Not long ago shit was fucked. We lived in a state of constant warfare with brute force being the main means of resource attainment. Our only option was to give up our freedom to the local lord so that their armies could protect us from an even greater evil. We lived under oppression and suffering so that we at least wouldn’t be killed for our crop of potatoes. This was only going on a few hundred years ago in some form or another where you are, even now it’s still going on in many places around the globe

Yet it seems to be a common theme in today’s world that it’s getting worse and worse for us. Take terrorism, for example, there’s way more terrorism, right?! When things become increasingly visible in the media, it’s easy to assume that they’re becoming more common – psychologists refer to this phenomenon as the availability heuristic. It can be difficult to separate a rise in attention from a rise in frequency. Increasing attention on terrorism can therefore make it seem like it’s always getting worse. But is this really true?

Steven Pinker's book, Enlightenment Now, outlines how things are so much better now. It argues that the Enlightenment values of reason, science, and humanism have brought progress; shows our progress with data that health, prosperity, safety, peace, and happiness have tended to rise worldwide; and explains the cognitive science of why this progress should be appreciated.

But Mark Manson's book, Everything Is F*cked, points out the massive rise in depression. Often defined as “losing interest in important parts of life.” More than 300 million people have depression or about 4% of the world’s population according to the World Health Organization’s data (WHO) from 2005-15, cases of depressive illness increased by nearly a fifth” (The Guardian). That is a pretty massive number and indicates there is some sort of issue or cause. Funnily enough, when you match up the trends in depression with that of economic development, you see they match up very well which does point towards prosperity leading to hopelessness.

Why Everything Is F*$ked…

So, it seems that things being too good lead us to feel like it’s all meaningless. When there is no evolutionary pressure on us to survive, we think too much about why we are here and this leads us to the uncomfortable truth that life is largely meaningless and we are going to die. Any legacy that we do leave will pass with those who die after us and everything we do, achieve, influence will be forgotten… so what is the point…

Well, the reality is that we are here on earth. So, we may as well do something and assume that that something has meaning. In order for it to have meaning, we need to assign meaning to it.  We must choose what things in our lives are meaningful. This will largely come down to our own genetic predispositions and environmental factors, it’s entirely subjective but, nonetheless, we must choose. 

When it comes to our work and how we structure our lives one paradigm is freedom vs. security. Some of us want the security of a stable job, long term relationship, and routine daily activities. Whilst others want the freedom of change, variety, and unpredictability that comes with more chaotic systems. We all have a mix between these poles and this mix likely changes over time. In this article, let’s focus on that freedom pole and what it takes to make it happen.

For those of us that crave freedom, we attach importance to adventure, risk, variety, and spontaneity. So, the thought of an overly structured, oppressed, routine, controlled life can leave us feeling downtrodden and depressed. And that’s really why we feel like sh*t following the socially conditioned narrative forced upon us.

If you crave freedom more, you should escape the matrix and create a life of your own design. This is never an easy thing to do, but if it’s what you want, you really have no other choice. If you don’t at least try to achieve the ‘so-called’ impossible, then you’ll leave yourself open to depression and learned helplessness. So, you have no other choice, if you want to live a happy, meaningful life you must take action.

How To Escape The Matrix

Society, family, education, the media, everything has brainwashed you to have a certain set of beliefs. Just think about how you feel about politics or religion. Are there some similarities you see in your own family and peers? Multiple studies have found your religious and political leanings are largely tied to your upbringing. But it doesn’t end there, your conditioning is pervasive across every aspect of your mental being.

For the most part, this is great, we learn from the lessons of those before us. This is why we know how to cure disease, build technology, and make delicious food. This conditioning helps us behave in ways that allow us to mould with society. Without this conditioning, we could be shunned and end up in prison, like so many who failed to be conditioned properly do.

But it’s also bad in that it stifles us from going beyond the bounds of our socially conditioned reality. We dare not dream or express our own ideas in case we are mocked by our peers. This leads to oppression of expression, making us feel wanting when it comes to living life to its fullest. We are left feeling helpless and depressed, with no hope for true meaning beyond the group thinking of what others would have us believe.

In order to escape and break free, you need to transform your mind. Our beliefs dictate what actions we take leading to the outcomes in our lives. So, in order to get the outcomes we want, our beliefs must be aligned with those desired outcomes. The problem is your beliefs right now have got you to where you are. If that’s not where you want to be, then you must change those beliefs to give yourself permission to take the desired action.

But how do you do that? Is it even possible to change your mindset and become someone you’re not? Well, you first need to realize that you are not really you. You’re a combination of a range of experiences and your interpretation of those experiences leading to your beliefs, values, motivations, behaviours and actions. These things can be influenced and changed as shown by a million stories and the research out there, just google “research on behavioural change.”

Transformations

Transformation is key, you need to be able to go through the process of transformation in order to go from one old limiting belief, preventing you from getting desired results, to a new empowering belief that helps you take the actions necessary to get those desired results.

Transformation is possible, just look at the numerous “rags to riches” stories of homeless people turned millionaire or billionaires like Andres Pira or from hardened criminal to public servant like Andrew Medal.

No one is cut from a different cloth, what one person can do another can do. Those around you who have achieved success are largely just normal average people, outliers are by definition rare. Those who achieve success in any area are not magically different to you, they’ve just got different behaviours. 

You are not you, you’re not amazing, and you’re not stupid. You’re a human, capable of the same things we all are. The difference is in the actions that you take when it comes to the outcomes you get. Sure, luck is a part of it, but those who are lucky are usually those who are most prepared. The most chances you give yourself to be lucky, the more likely you are to be.

Gradually transform into the person you need to be to achieve what you want. It won’t happen overnight, but if you consistently work on becoming the best version of yourself, you’ll make steady progress. Over time, steady progress builds up to bring you to the point where you’ll realise that ‘you’ve made it.’

The Process

Beliefs are what have gotten you to where you are today. What you believe to be true, good, wrong, and bad, has been driving you to do the things that you do. And you may not have even considered the power your beliefs have over you. In order to change your beliefs, you need to first figure out what they actually are, then remove those that limit you and replace them with those that empower you. This is done by auditing these beliefs daily and manually rewiring your beliefs into the new you like this.

Actions will take you from where you are to where you want to be. Your actions are the things that actually produce the results, but you’ll only take actions that match up with your beliefs. You need to determine which actions help get you closer to your goal, and which take you away from it, when it comes to time, money, and energy. Then, do more of the good actions, and less of the bad by tracking on a daily basis.

Outcomes should then be reviewed to determine how well they’re actually getting you to your goals. Actions produce outcomes, so by reviewing the outcomes of these actions, you can determine whether you are taking the right course of action, then steer yourself in the right direction. Outcomes are the north star that guide you towards your goals.

Taking massive action is all that matters in the end. The more you do the right stuff, the more positive outcomes you’re going to get, taking you to your visions faster. You can only really control whether you achieve your dreams based on the number of right actions you take minus the wrong actions you take.

Liberation

Coming out on the other side of massive action is results. What those results are depends upon the actions. But it’s a mix of positive and negative actions that lead to the mixed positive and negative results. The thing is, your beliefs about what is possible determine your actions, so you must start there. So, if quitting your job and achieving freedom is what you’re after, there's a certain set of actions you need to take to get that result. It’s not impossible, even though everyone in the matrix will have you believe that. It’s totally achievable if you have faith and take the necessary actions, like this guy.