The age old question: Should I quit my full time job and follow my dreams?

Should I quit my job and follow my dreams?

At the beginning of the People’s Yoga journey, I asked myself this very question. I had just finished graduate school and had my first full time job as a project manager in the rewarding field of affordable housing. On the side, I was building a yoga pop up with Leah Gallegos and on weeknights and weekends we were running all over town offering donation based yoga classes. 

I knew in my heart that I wanted to do this yoga thing and I did not want to do affordable housing work but I was scared. I had just gone to graduate school, invested time and money in this new field and had made great friendships and connected with a wonderful community of people. I was also creating affordable housing in Boyle Heights, El Sereno and East Los Angeles. This was a dream come true. 

But, during those quiet times of reflection and during the classes that I taught, I started to realize that my heart and spirit felt rejuvenated when I was leading classes, sharing yoga and being in community. I also realized my spirit felt more stifled and my mind more anxious when I was at my full time job. 

For months I wrestled with the question on whether to quit my job and commit to building People’s Yoga. It was a scary feeling but it was mostly exciting and in January 2013, I quit my full time job and went to work on People’s Yoga. 

I would never recommend to anyone to quit your full time job but I will be your sounding board. 

Here are some revelations that helped me make the decision and also some things I wish I would have thought of. 

1. I had put pressure on myself to buy my mother a house because that was the American dream and I wanted to be a dutiful daughter. I had to have a full time job to make that happen and that was one reason I told myself I needed that job. Once I realized that I grew up to be a perfectly healthy, functional and good person and that whether my mom rented or bought our home had nothing to do with it, I realized that everything is going to be okay. I didn’t need to put pressure on myself to “save the world” especially when she wasn’t even asking me to. 

2. I was very privileged to graduate from college with my undergraduate degree with low interest student loan debt (3%), and my monthly payment was a very doable $123 per month. I was VERY, VERY privileged to receive a full scholarship for graduate school and therefore did not accumulate any additional debt. This was a major factor in why I felt good with quitting my job, I had just moved in with my husband (then boyfriend) and our shared expenses were minimal. 

3. I knew I was employable and that if I wanted or needed to come back to full time work in affordable housing, I had contacts and relationships with enough companies that I could. I embraced the fact that if I leapt off this cliff and tried to build a business and utterly failed, no problem, just brush myself off and go get a job. 

What I wish I had thought of and done differently

1. When I quit my job, I stopped contributing to a retirement account and that was a mistake. 

   I should have opened a Roth IRA and funded it fully every year during the years I was not employed by a company. I would have more in my retirement account now so I have to play catch up for those lost years. 

2. When I quit my job, I did not have a framework or a system to help support the development of People’s Yoga. Leah and I were babies in this business world and we were trial and erroring everything. We didn’t have a plan nor did we have mentors or coaches. That was a mistake.

   We should have sought external support in the form of a mentorship or a coach to help us lay the foundation for our business right at the beginning. Because we didn’t, it felt like we were shooting from the hip and did not have a plan to grow nor pay ourselves accordingly. It took many years to get People’s Yoga to work and I even went back to full time affordable housing work for 3 years to pay my bills. I’m grateful I had that ability but in retrospect it would have been better if we had the right support at the beginning of People’s Yoga’s journey. 

In retrospect, I only have 2 main regrets from when I quit my job, and honestly they don’t keep me up at night. I’ve course corrected from those mistakes and have moved on. No biggie.

If you’re wondering, “Should I quit my job and follow my dreams” - I don’t have an answer for you but I will leave you with this - if you feel called to align your career with work that truly uplifts your heart and spirit, move towards it and don’t shut that feeling down. 

You will make decisions along the way with the best information available, and they may end up working out or they may end up causing you more trouble and that’s what life is. We do our best, assess, course correct, and keep moving forward.

Assess the pros and cons, your resources and liabilities and use your head and your heart to answer these questions. 

But if that fire to do work that truly ignites you is burning and calling your name, please listen to it and don’t squash it.

Our earth and humanity needs people who are willing to do the hard and scary things that light them up and make the world a better place, whether part time, full time or just 1 hour a week. Take your first steps and in time the answers on whether to quit your full time job will reveal themselves.