Ditch the Ladder & Choose your Fate

If your sunday scaries have shifted into a full on existential crisis, welcome. You belong here with the rebels. The good news is you don’t have to keep climbing up that soulless corporate ladder if you don’t want to, sugarplum. The even better news is that Geri Paige Butner, Life & Business Coach, is here to tell you exactly how to ditch the ladder for good & take fate into your own hands. Ready to leap?

When I left my job as the Head of Marketing for an impact investing app three years ago, I realized something amazing: Leaving your 9-5 to start your own business isn't just a career move, it's also a powerful act of liberation. 

Think about it. We take our first step onto what I call "The Ladder" when we're just five years old. We start with kindergarten and then spend the next 13 years of our life coloring inside the lines, learning by the book, and testing our way into access to the next level.

Many of us are then expected to strive for college acceptance and proceed through four more years of textbooks and testing. And we're expected to choose our career so we can get a degree that says we are hireable in that industry.

Then we climb through the entry-level, managerial, senior management, and leadership positions, in order. And that's that.

It's a system of external permission, validation, and approval. You can't move up a rung unless someone else says you can. There are endless tests and evaluations to see if you've earned the right to the next level of knowledge, responsibility, or pay.

Even if it's a system with the best of intentions, the truth is we have always been told what our next step is and confined to a generic menu of possibilities. 

For some, The Ladder actually works in alignment with their truth, their passions, and the work they want to do. They find aligned and passionate work on the menu of options and thrive in the corporate world or industry of their choosing. I'm happy for them.

For others of us, we choose the career option that feels most aligned to us, but we don't feel that fulfillment or passion with our work on The Ladder. Our passions and the work that lights us up aren't on the menu. So, often after much trepidation, we decide to step off and begin a new journey of our own creation.

So, what happens when we leave The Ladder? We have to start thinking, deciding, and acting for ourselves. After a lifetime of following the routine map of The Ladder, the catalytic launch into unbound possibility can be overwhelming. 

Thankfully, there are ways to deprogram and reprogram yourself to make this transition much more enjoyable:

1) Get to know yourself and your vision.

When we step off the ladder, we are faced with the freedom of choice. We can choose what impact we want to make, what kind of work we want to do, who we work with, how we earn a living from it, and so much more.

Questions suddenly arise like:

•   What do I want out of life?

•   What is my vision for a life well lived?

•   What do I truly want?

•   What are my gifts and talents? 

•   What impact do I want to make on the world?

•   How do I choose to spend my time and energy?

•   Who am I without my job and career identity? 

•   What is my value beyond productivity and achievement?

Heartfelt, truthful answers to these questions can be life-changing. And the answers are often much richer than the single self-exploratory question we're asked as children, "So, what do you want to be when you grow up?"

Sit with these questions, journal about them, and get to know who YOU are and what YOU want - without the career, the job identity, the productivity, the work achievement, and the expectations.

2) Lean into freedom.

Your job no longer dictates how you live your life. For so long, many of us lived our lives around our work. We schedule our vacations around when we can get the days off and how long we can be away. We work the hours we're told. We work within the processes, expectations, and culture of our employer. We fit in the rest of our living on weekends and after 5 pm on weekdays.

Now, you get to design your work to support the life you want. Get clear on the following:

• What freedoms do I want to have?

• What monthly income supports the life I want to live?

• What times of day or night do I have the most energy for work and creation? When do I want to work?

• What times do I want to protect for self-care, hobbies, relationships, etc?

• What are my non-negotiables?

• Who do I want to work with? Who won't I work with?

• What working style best suits me?

• Where do I need to support and when/how will I introduce it?

• How much time do I want to have the freedom to take off?

• Where do I want to be able to work from?

Get clear on the freedoms and choices you want in your business and be sure to integrate them into your business strategy. In doing so, you'll avoid the common mistake of leaving one box only to enter another of your own creation.

3) There are no rules.

Once you leave your employer, you can basically take every single rule you've ever learned about work and toss it out of the window.

Getting approval before you take action? Gone. Spending months researching and gathering information before choosing? No thanks. Watering down or minimizing your ideas to gain group buy-in? Absolutely not. Being held captive by the "right way" vs. "wrong way" to do something? Nope. Being limited by a 10% maximum salary increase each year regardless of performance and contribution? Ha!

The ceiling is gone, the chain of command starts and ends with you, and you no longer have to color within any lines. 

Carry this knowing with you as you build your business, and be wary of anyone who tells you there's only one way to do something.

4) You do not need approval or permission.

When a teacher, manager, or standardized test isn't telling us we're good enough to proceed to the next level, we can be faced with a major challenge - deciding that we're "ready," "good enough," or "able" to do the work we want in the way we want. 

I've witnessed many aspiring business owners get caught up in an endless wheel of certifications and courses before making a move towards launching their business. Many of them are subconsciously seeking that external stamp of approval telling them are now "ready" to begin.

The journey of being a business owner often involves taking action despite feeling fear, doubt, and discomfort.

You are the only person who can give yourself permission.

As you make this exciting transition, remember these key things:

• Get to know yourself and your vision. Let that vision and your truth guide you.

• Lean into the freedom you want in life. Don't create another ladder or box for yourself.

• Throw the rules out the window. You have the power to make up your own rules as you go.

• Know that you are ready, and give yourself permission to make mistakes as you go. Set yourself free from the need for approval.

Most importantly, enjoy the journey! 

Geri offers private coaching, as well as her signature Business Firestarter group coaching program. Find her on Instagram and at www.geripaige.com.