I quit my job

On throwing caution to the wind (sensibly)

I had a date recently. He asked if I’d been up to anything exciting. I replied,

“Nahh, nothing particularly noteworthy” while I racked my brains.

Then immediately followed up with “Oh wait, I quit my job.”

It’s a big deal. So much of a big deal for me, that it still kind of feels like I’m lying when I say it out loud. I was laughing when I said it, and I think he thought it was a weird joke.

I had to reassure him that, yes, I genuinely did quit my job that week.

You should know, I’m not really a quit-your-job kind of person. I’m a make-sure-you-have-a-guaranteed-salary-before-you-do-anything-else kind of person. Never in my life have I handed my notice in at a company without having a confirmed contract in place for my next full-time role.

And yet, here I am, quitting my job. With no new job to go to. Wild. And, more surprising, I don’t feel physically sick about it… I feel good.

Because there is a plan. And the plan is freelancing.

I think there comes a time in every marketer’s (or content writer, in my case) career when they see how much an agency is charging clients for their time and think “should I be self-employed?”

Usually that thought can be quickly quelled by the guaranteed monthly salary, gym allowance, paid holiday, pension scheme, and all the other things that come along with permanent corporate roles. But lately, it’s getting harder to ignore the call. Not even the lure of an expensed Pret lunch does it for me anymore.

So, I’m doing it. I’m setting up on my own.

But this isn’t just a formal announcement for Substack. It’s a long, open letter to myself to remind myself never to take this decision for granted, or even to let it look like I might be.

I see so many voices (across all industries) talking about how empowering it is to leave your 9-5. They’re always journaling in cafes or lounging on beaches or taking long, meandering hikes on a Monday morning. And that’s great for them. Genuinely. That kind of freedom is a massive, massive part of why I want to work for myself.

But what I don’t see enough of, is the admission that money matters. I hate it as much as the next person, but the reality is, turning away from corporate life is really scary. And part of the reason I’ve put freelancing off for so long is that nobody really tells you how to make it work — they just tell you how great and freeing it feels when you do.

I want to be able to go to hot yoga at 11am on a Tuesday morning, too. Of course I do. But in order to do that, I need to secure clients and deliver work that will pay for the hot yoga at 11am on a Tuesday morning. And before that, I want to be able to pay my bills.

The cost-of-living crisis is no joke. Money matters. We’re all closer to being homeless than we are to being billionaires.

So while I am, in one sense, throwing caution to the wind and following my self-employed dreams, I want to make it clear that I’m doing it with a sensible head on.

I didn’t quit my job on a whim. I made sure I had enough savings and contacts and mental resilience (admittedly there’s a faint question mark hovering over this last one), and then went to my senior leadership team with a pitch to hire me back as a part-time freelancer. And it worked.

This is not an aspirational ‘quit your job’ post. It’s an admission that I’m going to have the biggest task ahead of me and that I’ll share as much of it as you’ll listen to — in case any of you are also thinking about quitting your job in a sensible way.

Because I don’t take the decision to walk away from a guaranteed salary in 2025 lightly, and I don’t think anyone else should be encouraged to either (unless you come from massive generational wealth or something, obviously, in which case go forth and mill around on a beach doing yoga until your heart’s content).

You best believe I’ll be using every resource available to me to make this work because, as much as we can talk about the joy of taking work into our own hands and following our dreams and running off into the sunset, I have bills to pay, and I can’t pretend that’s not my priority. It’d be disingenuous if I did.

So, with that in mind, as I head into my last official week of corporate life, I wanted to put a call out. If you’re a freelance content writer/copywriter/content marketer/anything else at all, or if you’re thinking about taking the leap yourself soon, please do feel free to get in touch! I need all the resources, freelance friends, support group chats I can get. And I will, of course, share anything I can in return.

I should also say, if you’re looking for a B2B or tech content writer (though I realise this is Substack, so you probably aren’t), I’m your girl….

Thank you xox

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About The Content Girl

Opinions, insights, and the occasional marketing musing from a professional Content Writer giving writing in her own voice a go. You can expect:

• Commentary on pop-culture/regular culture and the like

• Insights/tips/information around professional Content Writing/Marketing and freelancing

• Personal essays (I’ll try to make these not insufferable, I swear)

• Book reviews, recommendations, and roundups

• The odd piece of flash fiction

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