How to Quit Your Day Job in 30 Days: A Step-by-Step Guide to Making the Big Transition Ebook

How to Quit Your Day Job

If you had all the time in the world, what would you do with it?

Would you travel? Do charity or creative work?
Connect with family and friends?

It's a big question, right? Certainly one that deserves all or most of your energy. But for most of us, our jobs take up all or most of our time. Instead of providing us with encouragement and a sense of accomplishment, they often cause us stress and self-esteem issues, taking a little bit more of our souls each day.

Does It Have to Be That Way?

My answer is a resounding no!

My name is Alyson Mead, and even though I was lucky enough to go to college, I ended up spending many years in the trenches, working at underpaid jobs with long hours and not making much progress on my bills. Though four years of higher education was supposed to rescue me from a life of poverty, all it did was make me a wage slave as I worked even harder to pay off all my student loans.

The most potent memory I have of my twenties was when I was forced to choose between going to the laundromat to wash my clothes (an expenditure of a few dollars in quarters, plus detergent), or paying my electric bill. Neither was a great option in New York City. Leaving your lights out only meant becoming easier prey for muggers. Being without clean clothes certainly made it interesting trying to keep a good job.

The point is that none of us should be forced to make that kind of decision. We are human beings, and all have an inherent dignity.

The choice between clean clothes and electricity became one of the defining moments of my life.

I swore that I would get better jobs, and I did, often working 16-18 hours per day, or taking on more than one job at a time.

At the same time, I read everything in sight - enough, my brother says, to fill several libraries. I wanted to find some kind of meaning. I could sense it all around me, but none of it had anything to do with my actual life. I rushed through my work in order to get to the end of the day, and my paycheck, which was eaten up almost as soon as I signed and deposited it.

But I could never get over my disappointment and irritation that I could not move up the ladder, at least fast enough for me. I started to argue with God all the time. I love my country, don't get me wrong, but I was beginning to doubt the American Dream.

Finally, after getting an A+ two years running on my performance review and not getting promoted at a new job, I'd had it. I came home fuming one evening, because someone who had been hired after me (and who usually left his work for someone else to do) got promoted instead of me.

"Quit," my husband (then my boyfriend) said.
I did a double take.
"What?"
"Quit. I hate seeing you this upset, and no job is worth this. You're very hard working and will come up with something better soon."

Bear in mind we were supposed to get married in 9 months, and had only saved a fraction of the reception's cost.
But I thought about it that night, and sketched out a few of what would become my 30 Steps.

The next day, I took my soon-to-be husband's advice and gave my notice. Sure enough, my boss actually GOT MAD at me, for having the nerve to stop serving his needs. But the feeling of quitting was intoxicating. I began to believe that I could do what I wanted with my life. No one was going to stop me now.

Over the next few nights, I mapped out what would become the full 30 Steps in my patented system.

30 days later, I quit my job.

I Want to Share My System with You!

For me, charity and work have always been tightly entwined. I enjoy working when I know I am helping someone to benefit, or when I know I am assisting in a major personal transformation. Whenever I enjoy a personal or financial boon, I immediately want to share it with others. In fact, my friends tease me about how I've made this a personal crusade in my life.

I can't argue with them there.

Have you ever been in a supermarket, or in the post office, and seen people being short-tempered or even outright rude with one another for no reason? Once, I saw two people get into a fistfight over who was first in line to get some stamps. Wow!

Have you ever been driving along a street and had someone screech up behind you, swerve to barely miss your car, honk the horn and flip you the bird?

Where are they going, I always think, and why are they so miserable?

My first guess is always their work. Most of us are dependent on work and money for survival, so having a job is often one of the most terrible compromises we all have to make. But I believe, no matter what education level you've completed, and what skills you may or may not have, that there is a way for you to quit an unfulfilling job and find the one you were put on earth to do.

My new e-book How to Quit Your Day Job in 30 Days: A Step-by-Step Guide to Making the Big Transition contains simple, easy to understand instructions on the important steps required to make a lasting transition from day job to new life. Do you want to do something creative with your life, or make more money so you can travel? It can be done!

At the same time, it's important to do it right. No one wants to go crawling back to a job they've just left because their money has run out (especially if you've had a few choice words for your boss on the way out!), so it's important to do all 30 Steps, in order.

If you have tried to quit your day job in the past and failed, you may have believed that leaving your job was all about money. Financial concerns are definitely important, and How to Quit Your Day Job will help you identify your needs and set about achieving them. But for most people, destructive mental and emotional patterns cause unnecessary obstacles to the very things you may say you want to achieve. How to Quit Your Day Job in 30 Days will help you remove these patterns, using simple exercises, meditations and visualizations. Stress relief is an added benefit of this work you do for you.

Did you know that you store stress in your body, and that each day you pretend that nothing is wrong with your current job can actually hurt your health?

According to a recent study by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health:

• 38% of women and 26% of men report that they feel "time-stressed."
• 40% of workers reported their job was very or extremely stressful.
• 25% view their jobs as the number one stressor in their lives.
• 75% of employees believe that workers have more job stress than 10 years ago.
• 29% of workers felt quite a bit or extremely stressed at work.
• 26% of workers said they were "often or very often burned out or stressed by their work.
• Job stress is more strongly associated with health complaints than financial or family problems.
• 62% routinely find that they end the day with work-related neck pain.
• 44% reported stressed-out eyes.
• 38% complained of hurting hands.
• 34% reported difficulty in sleeping because they were too stressed-out.
• 30% suffered from back pain.
• 28% complained of "stress."
• 20% reported feeling fatigued.
• 17% reported having muscular pains.
• 13% had headaches.

Another study, done by the Centers for Disease Control, found that:

• Stress is linked to physical and mental health, as well as decreased willingness to take on new and creative endeavors.
• Repetitive musculoskeletal injuries, such as carpal tunnel syndrome, have become the nation's leading workplace health cost, and account for almost a third of all Workers' Compensation awards
• Job burnout experienced by 25% to 40% of U.S. workers is blamed on stress.
• More than ever before, employee stress is being recognized as a major drain on corporate productivity and competitiveness.
• Depression, only one type of stress reaction, is predicted to be the leading occupational disease of the 21st century, responsible for more working days lost than any other single factor.
• $300 billion, or $7,500 per employee, is spent annually in the U.S. on stress-related compensation claims, reduced productivity, absenteeism, health insurance costs, direct medical expenses (nearly 50% higher for workers who report stress), and employee turnover.
• Women who work full-time and have children under the age of 13 report the greatest stress worldwide.
  Nearly one in four mothers who work full-time and have children under 13 feel stress almost every day.
• Globally, 23% of women executives and professionals, and 19% of their male peers, say they feel "super-stressed."
• Stress is linked to the six leading causes of death, heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidents, cirrhosis of the liver, and suicide.

Benjamin Franklin said, "Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of." All of us have only so much time on the planet. Truly, it's much too short to stay at a job that does not fulfill your mental, emotional, physical, spiritual or financial needs.

Since I followed these simple 30 Steps and quit my day job, my life has changed dramatically:

• Within six months, I started my first Internet business and made twice as much as I had grossed the previous year at my old job.
• I got married to the man of my dreams, who continues to support my entrepreneurial spirit.
• I started two more Internet businesses within a year, both of which have brought in enough money for my husband and I to starting looking to buy our first home - in cash!
• I have more time for spiritual development, as well as volunteer work. In fact, my company donates ten percent of its sales each month to a new and deserving charity.
• My mental and emotional health have never been better.
• I never have to make terrible decisions because I have no money.
• I pick and choose when, where and with whom I will work.
• We travel all the time, and are currently planning a vacation to Japan.
• I look forward to each new day as it unfolds, and feel no need to argue with or be mad at God any longer. In fact, I am grateful for the path that was shown to me, so I can share it with others in turn.

How to Quit Your Day Job in 30 Days was made for you. I don't want anyone else to have to suffer through another day, week, month or year of unfulfilling, abusive, tiring, and going-nowhere work. I would like to think that if we are smart enough to invent rockets, computers and other amazing technologies, we are smart enough to reclaim our lives and share them with the ones we love.

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