The Quote That Made Me Leave My Corporate Career

I'd been quietly struggling in my corporate job for almost the full nine years I was in it. Don't get me wrong, there were definitely periods where I was relatively content, even passionate about what I was doing, but it never took away that feeling of wanting more. Not more work or more success. More of me. More of my family. More of nature. More passion.

I remember looking around and thinking, is this it? Is this really what the rest of my life is going to look like? Because realistically, work is the rest of our life. We work until we're in our sixties or seventies, and I hope I'll still be full of life by then, but another 40 years of the grind, feeling like I had no energy for anything else? Not for me.

Now, I'm not bashing corporate life, or any other profession. There are so many people who thrive in their careers and genuinely love the structure, routine and stability of employment. Honestly, parts of it suited me too, especially the reliable income, paid holidays and the colleagues I genuinely adored, but I'd known I wanted to be self-employed before I even entered the working world, and I knew I had to leave corporate to do it.

It wasn't for lack of trying that it took me nine years. I just genuinely didn't know what I wanted to do until I discovered coaching at the end of 2024. Fast forward to late 2025: I was close to completing my coaching certification, thinking seriously about setting up my own business and I finally took the plunge. My contract meant I couldn't grow a business alongside my job, so I knew I had a choice to make. Stay in the career I'd worked hard at for most of my adult life, keep the stability and the reliable income, but let go of the dream? Or leave, start up BetHerself and risk the uncertainty?

Most people, myself included for a long time, choose to stay. And many feel like they genuinely don't have a choice, with real pressures and responsibilities that make stability non-negotiable. I want to honour that. But when I came across this quote, something shifted for me.

"Choose your hard."

Words that don't sound like much at first, but they really struck a chord.

What hard was I choosing?

Staying in a career at a company I respected, with colleagues I loved, but if I'm being honest with myself, dreading almost every day of it? The Sunday scaries kicking in by Friday evening? No energy left at the end of the day for anything other than TV? Begrudging going out at weekends because it was eating into the time I needed just to recover?

Or: starting my own business, doing work I love and have always been drawn to. Having the freedom to choose when and where I work. Spending my energy on something that fills me up rather than drains me. But also the uncertainty, the worry about whether I'd make it work, whether we could cover the bills. Learning taxes, marketing, lead generation, networking, all of it, as a one-woman show.

Both are hard. But when I looked at it like that, my choice became clear.

Not everyone would look at those two options and make the same decision I did and that's completely valid. What I do believe is this: knowing that you have a choice is the most powerful place to start. When you make it from that place, with full awareness, you can own it, whatever it looks like.