You finally left corporate to start a business. Even though you vowed things would be different, here you are, 3 months later, in your home office. It’s 8am, and you’re feeling guilty about that doctor’s appointment you’re thinking of canceling. Again.
The soul-crushing hours you’re keeping are blotting out all the freedom you imagined. You bargain with yourself: once I hit this revenue goal, I’ll take Fridays off. I can squeeze in my medical appointments if I work late.
What’s happening here? You’ve slipped back into old wiring. There are lots of good reasons for your corporate muscle memory to keep flexing once you start something new. But you don’t have to keep going this way.
Today, we’ll figure out how you can create a new system without rebuilding the old box you just escaped.
What You Internalized in Corporate (And Why It Follows You)
Over the years, you adapted to and internalized many aspects of the corporate box, like productivity meaning time in a chair.
Admin work and meetings added to your workload. And the performance reviews? Oh lordy. Even though you hated them, they merged with your sense of self-worth. You fought for vacation days, trimmed your bereavement leave, and canceled vacations because of work priorities.
The commute sucked, and the badge swipe checks made you feel like you were living in a surveillance state. You tried to do everything right, then watched friends (or yourself) get laid off for seemingly no good reason since the corporation was still pulling in record profits.
The wake-up call happens when you finally realize that your inherent value isn’t connected to your work effort, especially at a place you no longer love, doing work that no longer moves you. Like learning your parents are fallible, this can be an unsettling moment of loss. The system you knew so well doesn’t work for you anymore.
Signs You’re Recreating Corporate Habits in Your Business
Leaving corporate to start a business is when the trouble starts. Here’s what it looks like when the old system shows up inside your new one.
- You work long hours even when you vowed to keep a flexible schedule.
- Home-spun accountability and punishment systems keep you on task.
- Ignoring your natural body clock, you force yourself to work through your brain fog.
- The guilt about taking “time off” causes you to skip activities you love because they aren’t revenue-generating.
One of my former clients found herself creatively blocked when she slogged away at her desk for too many hours a day. She observed that her brain worked best on operational tasks in the mornings, and creative tasks in the afternoon.
But those creative tasks needed inspiration. So she arranged her schedule to wander through art galleries at lunchtime to give herself the boost she needed for the afternoon sessions.
If you discovered that you recreated the box as you built your own business and you’re miserable, fear not. It doesn’t mean that you’re a failed entrepreneur, just that you haven’t found the structure that works for you yet.
How to Design Flexible Work After Leaving Corporate
What’s the point of having your own business if you don’t take advantage of the flexibility it offers? It’s time to figure out what that means for you. Start here:
Remember why you wanted flexibility. It might be to improve your physical or mental health. Or allow for your caregiving responsibilities. Maybe you want to ride your mountain bike more. Make that flexibility your north star.
Know what gives you energy. Some people get a boost from a Zumba class or a painting session. Make a list of the things that energize you, call them fuel, and build them into your idea of productive work.
Get clear on the work your job has to do. Your corporate job had to carry a lot of weight, providing you with everything you needed to feel content. Now you can spread the responsibilities more widely:
- Nurture relationships with friends and in community
- Find meaning in creative projects and service work
- Feel a sense of achievement from your business AND other areas of life
These are foundational aspects of what you’ll build and they act as baked-in boundaries.
One more thing: let the offgassing happen. The first few months after you leave a corporate job feels a lot like grief. You might be foggy and emotional as you reimagine your identity. You’ll miss your work friends. Feel it all – your nervous system is rewiring.
Once you have some boundaries and the fog lifts, who’s going to run the show?
Managing Yourself as an Entrepreneur
When you are out on your own, you’ll stay out of the box by being the best, most benevolent boss you’ve ever had.
It’s easy to bring your old tyrant of a manager with you to the next thing. Especially because they smoothly transform into a critical voice inside your head.
Your internal boss might expect you to be online for 10 hours a day. Or to never publish anything unless it’s perfect. You might never acknowledge your own efforts, focusing only on your mistakes. Before you know it, you’re skipping the soccer games or daytime lectures you planned to attend.
If you create a little separation between the hyper-critical voice and your actual self, you can recognize when it’s happening and go easier on yourself.
You are the leader now. No random person with a fancy title can waltz in and derail your life at any moment. No one is asking you to justify every hour.
Instead, you can treat yourself like the responsible adult you are. You manage your work time, go to the doctor when you need to, and rest when you’re sick. Creativity and play are woven into your work – they are not distractions.
Of course, you’ll still want some boundaries so you don’t become the slacker manager who expects nothing. You’ll be the kind of leader who is fair, understands your strengths, and clears the path so you can be focused and inspired.
You’ll establish consistency, not chaos. Just the lightest structure and routines that are optimized to a company of one: you.
Building Community as a Solopreneur
And before you imagine your complete isolation as a solopreneur, community is part of your new system, too. You probably won’t have the coworkers you got for free in companies, so you’ll need to go find some new colleagues.
Whether it’s a networking group for entrepreneurs or a cohort of practitioners in your field, find the people like you who are making it happen. Join groups and show up regularly. Bonus points for in-person meetups. Trade ideas, support, and tools. You can even start every week with an accountability group so your days have a little structure.
When I first went out on my own, going out for a mid-day coffee with another solopreneur felt reckless, like I was getting away with something. Now, owning my time feels so natural that I marvel with my fellow self-employed colleagues at how we ever managed to take care of life in the margins of a corporate workday.
And if you’re a night owl, seek out others like you who are making it work. From service industry jobs to consulting with companies in dramatically different time zones, you can find people who make work align with their body clocks, not the other way around.
Creating Work That Fits Your Life
You left corporate to build something better. Don’t let muscle memory drag you back into the box.
You have permission to:
- Work when your brain actually works
- Take breaks without guilt
- Design a life where work is one part, not the whole thing
- Be the kind manager you always deserved
The old box didn’t fit. Don’t build a new one in its exact shape.
You can create something that actually holds who you are and what you need.
Burn the map. Build what fits.
For more ways to optimize your new life, listen to Episode 14: Optimize for What Matters
