WHEN I KNEW IT WAS TIME TO QUIT MY JOB
When we started Juice Because the dream was to one day quit our day jobs and run our own little juice shop. We had started the company as a part-time passion project working evenings and weekends always hoping that at some point we could make the switch and make JB our full-time gig. It’s a good thing we got over waiting for that “perfect” moment otherwise we would still be playing the side hustle game talking about what we wanted to do and not actually doing it.
Months leading up to leaving my job I had spent hours reading articles and blog posts on “When you know it’s time to quit” and “Should you leave your day job to follow your dreams?”. I was searching for an answer or a checklist that I could apply to my life that told me, now is the time! Unfortunately there is no special eightball that can give you the right answer. I did find one quote though that stood out to me; “If everything is perfect, you waited too long”. Let that sink in for a minute.... Now read it again “if everything is perfect, you waited too long”.
My lightbulb moment was anything but perfect. My manager pulled me aside one day at work and bluntly asked if I liked my job. I don’t think I stopped to think about my answer even for a second, “No”. Finally my lack of fulfillment at work was starting to show and I knew I had to make a change. Nothing about JB was perfect in this moment. We were still waiting on permit approvals from the city to start construction, we were still juicing out of rented kitchen space, and more money needed to go into the company before we could even entertain the idea of paying ourselves.
The decision to leave my job could have been very complicated and messy. Instead I saw two options: 1. Stay at work where I knew I was unhappy waiting for the right time to leave or 2. Leave my job and really give Juice Because a fair shot. Even though things didn’t look exactly how I wanted them to with JB I knew I had to choose being happy over waiting for the perfect moment.
I think sometimes we get caught up waiting for some ideal situation or version of ourselves that lives in the future. Don’t get me wrong, working hard today for a future goal is a fantastic thing but also a different thing. Sometimes I wonder if I had waited for everything to fall into place if it would have even happened. Things still don’t look exactly as I’d like them to, but I’ve learned to be okay with that and just appreciate that right now in this moment today I am happy because I chose to be.