I know someone who worked full-time at Microsoft for 20 years. Fed up with the politics and craving more flexibility, he quit. Then he immediately took a role as a full-time contractor on the same team, in the same building.
To friends on the outside, nothing had changed for him. To this guy, everything was different. He felt like a freelancer. No performance reviews, no jockeying for promotions. He did the work and went home. He truly felt like he had left the corporate world. Even if the commute was exactly the same.
“Leaving corporate” might mean that you never set foot in an office again. That you focus on your pottery or your music career. But for many people, that idea feels overwhelming. If you don’t have a creative and revenue-generating idea, you should just stay, right?
Maybe not. Let’s talk today about the enormous range that lies within the phrase “leaving corporate.”
What Leaving Means to You
What if leaving corporate just means leaving the aspects of your job that are burning you out? Some of my clients find enormous relief when they move from a big company to a smaller one. They get to use their skills in a more visible way, and retain more agency to make things happen. They recognize that they weren’t exactly fed up with everything that smelled corporate, just certain dynamics that were endemic to the system they were in.
Others need a more dramatic change. Artists who are trapped in corporate costumes might not be able to stomach the idea of stepping into a smaller but similar box. In that case, more preparation is needed if they want the next thing to support them financially.
What You Do, Not Who You Are
It’s common for your identity to be tangled up with your job. The idea of leaving a role could feel like leaving your entire personality behind. A software developer who lives in my house worries openly about who he’ll be when he stops coding for a living.
You’ve always been more than your job. Just ask someone who knows you well and does not understand your job at all. How do they describe you? Probably through your personality traits, sense of humor, things you like. That will still be you after the title is gone.
What Needs to Change
Now that you know that you won’t abandon yourself when you leave your job, you can define what leaving means to you. To figure this out, get specific about what needs to change.
Maybe you have a terrible manager who is making your work life awful. You don’t mind the company – things were tolerable before the new person took over. You still enjoy using your skills and you like working with other people. You feel sad and disappointed at the thought of leaving the company because of this one person. And at the same time, internal roles are scarce.
All of this is good to know. Stepping completely away from the corporate world could be a shock to your system that you don’t have to experience yet. Contracting back to the same company, like my old friend did, might be the answer. Or finding a team and manager at a similar firm could be the move.
Start With the Smallest Number of Changes
Have you ever gone house hunting with an extensive list of criteria for the perfect place, only to strike those items off one by one when you can’t find anything that fits? You don’t have to do that here. Start with the smallest list of criteria possible to figure out your “leaving corporate” sweet spot.
A useful starting point is something simple: what do you want to stop, start, and continue? We are not after an exhaustive inventory, just the non-negotiables.
STOP is the easy one. What’s actually draining you? The open office, the micromanager, selling something you don’t believe in. Whatever it is, name it plainly.
START is trickier, because people tend to get vague here. If you want more flexibility, when and for what purpose? Try to get it down to a few things you can actually picture.
CONTINUE is where people get tripped up. There are things that are working, like using your analytical brain, working with colleagues, earning something close to your current salary. If you don’t put those on the list, you’ll end up investigating options that would require you to give them up.
When you put all three together, a shape usually emerges. This way, you won’t waste time investigating an Etsy store for your pottery when you really just want to keep doing what you’re doing at a company with a mission you can stomach.
When you finish your STOP, START, CONTINUE list, you might discover that your current job function is ok, but the environment is all wrong. Or that you like all the people, but want to work much less. This is where your creativity comes into play. Applying your small list of criteria to a variety of options: freelancing, starting a company, finding partners, diving into your art.
You Are a Package Deal
Some things you want to start can’t be addressed by a job, which will point you to what needs attention outside of your work life. You might already notice that hobbies and friendships drifted away while you were in full-out work mode. It’s time to get those back. Paid work is only part of what you’ll do.
Besides, bolstering your life at home and with friends is what makes your version of leaving possible. Which items from your START list can happen independent of a day job? You might find purpose through volunteering or work with a faith community. Your creativity can get a boost if you and a friend sign up for a painting class. You’re after balance across everything you do, not just within a job.
Knowing What’s Yours and What Isn’t
When he left Microsoft, my friend got some flak from people around him. They told him he didn’t really leave – his badge just turned a different color. But that criticism wasn’t about him at all.
You get to decide what leaving corporate means. Others, with their own definitions, might not be satisfied by what you choose, then project their judgment onto you. The ones who yearn to see someone chuck it all and follow their artistic dreams might not have the courage or the resources to do that themselves. Nod politely and move on.
Your own judgments about what constitutes leaving might come up as well. I hear people complain that they are too old to start over or not artistic enough to vacate the corporate world. But plenty of people go back to school in their 50s and start new careers. Others combine their artistic vision with all the business knowledge they spent years developing. Start in the middle.
Your version of leaving corporate might look different from what others say it is. That’s fine. It only has to work for you.
