After reading a story about me published and printed by The Daily Monitor – Uganda’s latest news, sports, Health, business analysis and reviews – titled  ‘I was bored with formal jobs’, ‘friends’ on Facebook in-boxed and asked that I share tips on how to move forward after quitting formal employment. ( You can read the story here -> http://www.monitor.co.ug/Magazines/Jobs-Career/-I-was-bored-with-formal-jobs–/689848-4137354-6uq0jo/index.html )

The most touching message among the many was one from an OG (old girl) from college who said,

Hey Pat. I’ve just seen the headline in the newspaper. I am also tired of formal employment. I actually quit my job recently and just went home! Please share some tips on how to move forward.

It reminded me of the first job I ever applied for and how it ended up being the first one I ever quitted. Being a Switch Board Operator in a hotel was not my destiny job, I applied for it to learn how private business owners managed theirs. I had lost my parlour to bankruptcy caused due to the lack of business development and management skills, and the idea of starting from the bottom was welcomed.

While learning the basics of phone marketing, customer care, client service and interpersonal skills; I was also identifying the needs of my community so that when I quit, I had a fallback plan alongside looking out for the next employment platform to further my learning. This is how Shalom Community – an internet cafe – was born in Kasubi, Lubya with the help of my parents and an application for a Sales Executive in AAR Uganda was submitted.

Never quit a job that pays all your bills without a plan!

My plan was that one day I will rise again and run my own business but before that happened I needed to learn from those before me and equip myself with the necessary skills.

Pray!

Every one of us has a God-given agenda, mission, destiny that we should fulfil if we keep our eyes on Him. I have always somewhat known that I had something to offer the world, just needed to find it and nurture it. Prayer helped direct my footsteps in a direction that puzzles some people( read folks).

AAR Uganda, Four by Six Images, Xtrim Casting taught me leadership, sales, photography and pitching skills. Skills I now use in my own company and imparting in my team.

Focus! 

As Daily  Monitor said, I have always loved technology mainly for its connectivity abilities. This love I carried to all the jobs I joined. Used to open Social pages for these companies and mentioned them in all my online circles alongside learning more about the Social Media which was enabled by technology.

Passion!

My passion for writing even when the grammar and sentence construction was off, never died. I kept writing and learning by reading other’s work, attending online class and using all the available tools to grammar check like Grammarly.  This passion helped me write blogs about another passion of mine – social media which became my curiosity subject.

Curiosity!

I think have I have always been curious since childhood, even if I had never put a name to it. Like how I started selling homemade Jambula juice at home at 11 years old. My curiosity has had me sit in tech hubs to learn how such space operator and to code, had me attend every event I could find online so that I could network and get to know people.

So when you are planning to quit your job, analyse yourself and your future. The things youw ant to achieve and how you are going to achieve them. The power to grow into something better than what you are now, lays withinn you.

 

Patricia Kahill

Patricia Kahill is a multipotentialite Christian entrepreneur, Content Marketing Coach and founder of the Content Marketing agency, Kahill Insights that helps business owners create engaging and interactive content items for digital platforms with a focus on returning a desired outcome. Patricia was the producer of SlamDunk Basketball Talk a show on House of Talent online TV, a former fellow at Harvest Institute for leadership and now an assessor there, and an alumnus of the YELP class of 2017. A member of the BNI Integrity chapter and African Women Entrepreneur Cooperative. She is driven by passion and curiosity, been taking every opportunity that has been given to her with an ambition of stamping her footprint on the world.

2 thoughts on “How to move forward after quitting formal employment”

  1. Interesting read… But I take it the biggest problem is “Never quit a job that pays all your bills without a plan!”
    Many times people sit and stay stressed in jobs because we have no other option. How do we pay the bills ? How do we even start a new life of being unemployed yet previously we were?
    But most among all, is how do you quit and join another job? From the vast amount of advice I have been given, many people seem to be of the view that it is better to quit when you already have a fall back plan like another job, personal business or some savings to take you through…

    Oh and there is a typo on the first line after the first image… ~quitted~ it is ‘quit’.

    1. Thank you for the comment and typo notification.

      I think you can quit and just start from zero with no fall back job. My quit form Ugo Uganda had no solid fall back plan. All I knew was that I was to keep blogging my site and talk about interesting things on my social pages. This was after getting all my saving paying forward all my bills. Some plans are necessary even if they are help you pass through the next day.

      And if you are still debating about quitting I think you are not ready, those ready just walk out with no back and forth, you will get there though.

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