Episode 139: 8 Things to Do Before You Quit Teaching

Full Episode Transcription:

(00:07):
When I was still teaching, it seemed almost impossible to figure out how I was going to be able to quit. I knew that I wanted to be home with my daughter, but I just didn’t know how my teaching skills would transfer into another career and just how I was gonna get from point A to point B. It was really overwhelming to even think about it, which is why in today’s episode I’m sharing eight things you need to do to prepare to quit teaching.

(01:45):
The first one is making time for your business. This sounds ridiculously easy, but it’s not. In fact, I wanna ask you how many days have passed by right now as of this moment that you’ve been meaning to start looking for other options outside of teaching? When was the first time you thought, “okay, I need to get the heck out of here” and have you done anything about it? If you haven’t, then this is an issue that you can work to resolve. You have to schedule in time for your business or whatever you wanna do outside of teaching, just like you would with a doctor’s appointment. In my case, I was on what I thought at the time would just be a long maternity leave of one year, and I worked on my business every time my daughter was napping, Every time she was nursing, I was learning as much as I could, and so you have to make time for what is your priority.

(02:48):
So there’s this beautiful quote that actually one of my TTFA students shared, and it says, “Instead of saying, I don’t have time, try saying it’s not a priority and see how that feels.” So you could say, “I’m not working on my growth because it’s not a priority.” So if that doesn’t sit well, that’s the point. Time is a choice. If we don’t like how we’re spending it, we can choose differently. I love that, that quote. So thank you, Amber for sharing that. But yeah, you have to make quitting teaching your priority, and you have to fit it in wherever you can, and if you don’t have time, you’re gonna have to make it. If you want this to happen now, some ways that you can find a little bit more time, you can talk to your partner about working a few hours in the evening, one or two days a week. You could work one day on the weekend or a couple hours each morning of Saturday and Sunday. Now, yes, this may seem hard. Yes, this is gonna hurt a little, but remember that this is just for a small period of time while you are kind of bootstrapping it, trying to get your business going so that you can quit teaching. All right?

(04:04):
The second thing you need to do before you quit teaching is to invest in training. The reality is, is that if you want quick and clear growth so that you can replace your teaching income faster, you have to invest in training to help you build those skills quickly so you’re not wasting time trying to figure things out on your own. Now, this kind of goes hand-in-hand, but number three is to invest in a mentor. You wanna work with somebody who has been where you are, and this will allow you to replicate a successful business model for a quick start so you’re not making mistakes that you could be avoiding, and you’re really honestly saving so much time and in the long run, so much money by having a game plan that you can follow step-by-step.

(04:52):
All right, number four, the fourth thing you should do before you quit teaching is you should save up about three months of expenses before you quit. Now, sometimes, especially as a virtual assistant, it can take a little bit of time to get your first client, so you just wanna kind of have that cushion in your pocket to help you not have to stress about, you know, needing to replace your income asap. You wanna give yourself a little bit of wiggle room, right?

(05:19):
The fifth thing that you should do before you quit teaching is to enlist support. Becoming a virtual assistant is hard because you’re going against what’s expected. You’re not doing the typical nine-to-five. A lot of your family and friends probably aren’t going to understand what you’re going through and the struggles you’re facing because they’re not facing it themselves. So you wanna make sure you’re surrounding yourself with community that understands what you’re going through and can help you through it.

(05:49):
A great place to do this is in my free Facebook community, facebook.com/groups/ditchtheclassroom, or an even better one is the Teacher Turned Freelancer Academy. When you join TTFA, you get all of the support, accountability, and tools you need to be successful, and whenever you have imposter syndrome rearing its ugly head or you just need somebody to be like, I’m in this with you, TTFA, and all of the students in that community are seriously a game changer. You can also follow people who have the exact type of business you want, so you’re surrounded with the type of support you really need to succeed. Also, just a heads-up, if you have a family member that you know is not going to fully support you and encourage you, don’t tell them. You don’t need anybody hindering you with their fears or any of that, just don’t tell them. If they ask you what’s up, just find a workaround.

(06:52):
All right. Six, be sure you choose a business that can scale. Don’t choose something that is simply trading time for money. You also wanna be careful that you pick services that you can continue to better yourself, raise your skill, and then raise your price. You don’t wanna have to just keep doing more work so you can make more money. You’re gonna end up running out of time, so you need to increase your level of skill, and then you can charge more for a project that takes the same amount of time, so make sure it’s something that can scale.

(07:26):
Number seven. The seventh thing you need to do before you quit teaching is to create a game plan with monthly and quarterly goals. You can’t fly by the seat of your pants when you’re trying to quit teaching because then you’re gonna look back in two years and be like, “Okay, I still have not done anything in this journey.” So you need to sit down, give yourself a deadline of when you want to have fully replaced your income, and then break that down into monthly goals and weekly goals, and even daily goals to help yourself get there.

(07:57):
All right. The eighth thing you need to do before you quit teaching, and the most important one in my opinion, is to have faith and trust God. I always, always, always tell y’all, if God put this dream on your heart, it is not there for no reason. If he’s calling you to be home with your babies more, you have to have a way to do that. You have to still provide an income for your family so you can pay off that debt, take those dream vacations, build that dream house, all the things. So if he’s giving you this nudge, then you just have to follow it. He’s not gonna give you the whole entire roadmap, but take that step of faith and you’ll be amazed at where you could be a year from now.

(08:39):
All right, y’all, so I hope these steps were helpful for you as you work through your journey of quitting teaching and replacing your teaching income from home. If you’re ready to do what it takes to step out of teaching and become a virtual assistant, I wanna invite you to come and join us in the Teacher Turned Freelancer Academy. This is everything you need to replace your teaching income in six months or less as a virtual assistant. Come check out everything we have to offer and join us at teacherturnedfreelancer.com. As always, I’m an open book. I’m happy to answer any questions that you have about any of the topics we covered today, or just anything about becoming a virtual assistant or quitting teaching in general. You can always reach out to me. All right, y’all, I hope you have a great rest of your day, and I will see you next time.