How to Escape the Rat Race and Start Over: A Step-by-Step Guide to Freedom

In This Guide

• Introduction: Escape the Rat Race

• Why You Want to Escape the Rat Race

• The Blueprint: How to Leave the Rat Race

  • Step 0: The Required Mindsets

  • Step 1: Prepare for the Escape

  • Step 2: Quit Your Job

  • Step 3: Starting Over: Your New Path to Freedom

  • Step 4: Sticking To It Through The Challenges

• Conclusion: Take the First Step Today

Introduction: Escape the Rat Race

Alarm goes off. It’s 6:00 a.m. You have t-minus 60 minutes to be in ass-in-chair at work.

Years back, this was an exciting feeling. Now it’s exhausting.

You get to work—meetings, emails, and tasks. This effort is done to further the company’s goals.

After a long day at the office and traffic on the way home, you kick your shoes off and sink into the couch.

Tomorrow, you’ll repeat this. And the day after, and the day after…

Now imagine a different reality:

You’ve fantasized about it before—having the time, energy, and clarity to do and learn the things you want. To live on your terms.

To Leave the Rat Race

I’ve been there—burnt out, unfulfilled, and stuck in a corporate grind that seemed inescapable.

Some want to quit their job to travel, some freelance, others build a business or change careers. We’ll attack all of these options.

This is a no-bullsh*t guide. It cuts deep, and provides real, actionable tools from someone who’s done it. Forget the Forbes surface-level advice, this is the raw, authentic truth.

I’ll walk you step by step through how to get our of the rat race and create a life of purpose, freedom, and fulfillment—because I’ve done it myself.

Why You Want to Escape the Rat Race

If you’re reading this, I presume you’ve been questioning the rat race for some time.

The rat race isn’t just a job; it’s a mindset.

The never-ending chase for promotions, pay raises, and external validation. Let’s just say it leaves you… exhausted and unfulfilled.

If you’re here, you probably already know why you want out, but common reasons are:

• Burnout: Chronic stress from overwork can take a toll on your mental and physical health.

• Lack of Purpose: Working for someone else’s dream that might not align with your values.

• Desire for Freedom: The rigidity of corporate life often leaves little room for creativity, travel, or self-directed learning.

Know this: it is possible. You can in fact quit your job and leave the rat race, forever.

The Blueprint: How to Leave the Rat Race

Step 0: The Required Mindsets

Before we consider financials and logistics, we must have the right beliefs.

Without these, a pile of money and a great plan mean nothing, because we’ll never take action.

Your beliefs about yourself and what’s possible dictate whether you act on your desire to escape the rat race. They will determine whether you succeed in transforming your life.

This is more than pivoting careers or moving to be temporarily satisfied by the novelty of a new job, only to lose its spark again a year later.

This is about all out uprooting, transforming, and growing.

Don’t underestimate the mental aspect—it underpins everything else, from the financials, to the new career, to the travel.

Let’s look at a few examples:

1. Fear: I can’t leave my job.
   
   Reality: People leave, to never return, all the time. If someone else can do it, you can too. This one is purely a mind game.
   

2. Fear: If I quit, I won’t have money and I’ll live under a bridge.
   
   Reality: Check this out… this one changed my perspective a lot: the absolute worst case is that you end up right where you are now.
   
   You fail? Run out of money? You will be able to get a job. With that job you’ll get your same apartment and car back. Your life will resume with a minor setback, and you can say you tried.
   

3. Fear: My coworkers/family/friends will be right if I fail
   
   Reality: Two words… F*ck ‘em! Your coworkers have those same fantasies of walking away to never return to their 9-5. They are governed by fear.
   
   Your friend who is a doctor secretly dreams of NOT working 80 hour weeks but instead being in Thailand. She is governed by fear.
   
   We’re humans, we crave freedom. But, we’re humans… some of us allow fear to run our lives.
   
   The sooner you drop all concern of what other’s think, the sooner you’ll be on your way to freedom.

Highly Recommended:

Do the fear-setting exercise, from Tim Ferris. You’ll map out your goals and fears, then logically arrive at a conclusion for whether to act or not.

For example, I mapped out my fears of leaving my job to travel. Not getting another job, being homeless, public failure. I then listed ways to recover.

After thinking through worst-case and best-case scenarios and weighing the costs of not taking action, the decision was clear.

Lastly, this is very important:

While you’re on your journey, you must think about what you are building and becoming. Not what you fear you’ll have to go back to.

My first time quitting my job (I did it twice), I constantly was thinking about being “back in corporate.” Interviewing, getting a job, working a job.

To little surprise, that happened.

The second time I quit, I was still telling myself “I’m never going back to corporate.” This is also unhelpful, because we are still fixated on the rat race.

As a man thinketh, so is he. Remember that.

What we focus on becomes our reality. We must focus on our vision, our new life, and our freedom. Nothing else.

Step 1: Prepare for the Escape

Now that you’ve got your mind right, let’s dive into the details of escaping.

Financial Prep

Build a Safety Net

Save 6-12 months’ worth of living expenses to reduce financial stress during your transition.

This will vary for those looking to travel, versus those staying where they are to build a new career or business.

For travelers, a breakdown of monthly budgets for living decently in different regions:

• Southeast Asia: $800-$1,200 (e.g., Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia)

• Latin America: $900-$1,500 (e.g., Colombia, Mexico, Argentina)

• Eastern Europe: $1,200-$1,800 (e.g., Croatia, Romania, Georgia)

• South Asia: $600-$1,000 (e.g., India, Nepal)

• Western Europe/North America: $2,500-$4,000 (e.g., US, UK, Germany, France)

  So, if you’ve got $20,000 in savings, you can last over a year in LatAm, but less than six months in the US.

Eliminate Debt and Costs

Pay down high-interest debt. While you do this, eliminate any monthly recurring costs you can. An easy target is all of your home country expenses if you’re traveling.

I reduced my US-based expenses to zero as I’d travel abroad. I canceled my phone plan, sold my car, and emptied a storage unit to save the monthly $90 fee.

Simplicity

Learn to live with less, and sell what you don’t need. Downsizing your lifestyle can buy you time and freedom.

I traveled with one suitcase containing 4 shirts, pants, joggers, and a pair of shoes—for over a year.

Like the Marie Kondo minimalist approach says, “does this item bring me joy?” If it’s not a whole-hearted yes, get rid of it.

Back-Up Plans to Extend Savings

• Couchsurfing or House-Sitting: Use platforms like Couchsurfing or Trusted House Sitters to eliminate housing costs.
  

• Work Exchange Programs: Websites like Workaway or WWOOF let you trade labor (e.g., teaching English, farming) for room and board. You may just get a badass experience like working on vineyard in Argentine wine country.
  

• Part-Time Remote Work: Pick up flexible gig work like virtual assistant tasks, writing, or tutoring to generate income on the go.
  

• Freelance Micro-Gigs: Platforms like Fiverr or TaskRabbit can offer quick, short-term income streams.

I always wanted to extend my runway as much as possible, giving myself more time to build my income while living comfortably.

Step 2: Quit Your Job

It’s time to pull the trigger, my friend. The scariest and best part.

That eloquent and self-righteous resignation email you’ve been fantasizing about writing (and perhaps already have saved in draft)… launch that bad boy.

You know the classic advice. “Don’t burn bridges”, “quit gracefully”. Shit, that is, unless it’s a bridge that deserves a good burning…

Points to consider:

• Give notice after you’ve received your annual bonus to add financial cushion. Like, once it’s safely in your bank account.
  

• Explore whether your company offers sabbaticals. Mine did, even though no one had ever told me. Even if you don’t plan on ever returning, this can offer peace of mind.
  

• Keep key contacts—that cool coworker that you know has your back. The guy in charge of the hiring is always good to know, as a worst-case scenario.
  

• Keep the leverage. Meaning, don’t reveal your plans too early. Decide your date, give the standard two week notice, and leave on your terms.
  
  Once I told an employer I was “looking for jobs” before I was actually prepared to leave. It felt good to voice my frustration and put them on notice, to hopefully improve my job conditions.
  

  They told me they needed me gone within the month. I was stranded with no job lined up and monthly payments on my place and car. Learn from my mistakes.

Step 3: Starting Over: Your New Path to Freedom

Once you’ve left the corporate world, it’s time to embark on your new course.

You likely already have an idea of what you want to do. Perhaps you’ve started to build it.

Or, if you’re like me when I quit, you’ve got no f*cking idea (that’s okay).

Build a Business

Launch that thing. Whether it’s a blog, an online store, consulting services utilizing your existing skills. Some, like me, want to stay far away from their prior careers.

Entrepreneurship allows you to create something that’s truly yours.

“Don’t follow your passion, follow your talent. What are you good at? Then, add the 10,000 hours to become the best at it, and you’ll get rich. Then, being able to provide for your family and buy nice things, it will become your passion.” —Scott Galloway

We’ll be dropping detailed guides about building a business. Having launched several myself, my quick tips are:

• Speed and iteration. Launch quickly, test, and kill quickly. Don’t become emotionally attached to a sinking ship.

• You don’t need to form a LLC / do government paperwork until you make $10k. This will save you tons of time upfront.

• Building websites, designing logos, and shipping products is now stupid easy thanks to tools like Squarespace, Canva, AI, Alibaba. If you feel like it’s all over your head, I can assure you, you can do it.

Freelancing or Remote Work

• Leverage your existing skills to work for clients or companies on a contract basis on websites like Upwork or Fiverr.

• Pro Tip: Start freelancing while still employed to build up a client base and portfolio.

This is a great hybrid approach. You can get your income up early, while gaining experience that will help you in your own business (if that’s your goal).

Full-time Travel or Sabbatical

Let’s say you want to return to work in a year rather than change careers entirely. Your company gives you a sabbatical and guarantees your spot when you return. Shiiiit.

Imagine the clarity and inspiration you’d return with after a year of nothing but experiencing life. For me, returning isn’t an option, having tasted that kind of freedom.

Well-traveled backpacker routes like South East Asia and South America are the place for this, in my opinion. Affordable, edgy, and diverse in terms of nature, cultures, and experiences.

I met plenty of people who, out of college, got a job offer from a great company to start six months from then. They’d travel, run up credit card debt, then pay it all off and start fresh after onboarding.

I also met people taking “career gaps” or “mini-retirements.” All good options.

What If You Don’t Know? Reinvention and Purpose

This will be a time of great self-discovery. For many, our jobs have withheld the necessary space and clarity to truly understand what we want, who we are, and our purpose.

The quarter-life crisis stages (trapped, checking out, separation, exploration, rebuilding) posit that we must create this space and explore.

“Purpose isn’t something we just find, like we stumble upon it walking down the street. Purpose is crafted.” —Dr. K

Explore new hobbies, interests, and workshop—the act of trying different careers, businesses, and activities to see what resonates.

Step 4: Sticking To It Through The Challenges

To begin, I’ll refer back to the most important idea that will guide you through your transition: “As a man thinketh, so is he.”

Meaning, we must focus on where we are going, rather than what we fear we’ll go back to.

Here are some common issues that arise. Know that these are normal.

1. Temptations to conform:
   
   Your entire family, friend group, and former colleagues are all in the rat race. Seemingly everyone is.
   
   Are you doing something wrong? Should you go back and just “be normal”? Are you childish for dreaming big and trying to be different?
   
   NO! This is fear working to convince you to retreat and play it safe.
   

2. Fear of Failure:
   
   We must come to view failure as a positive thing. In failure lies tons of learning, value, and information.
   
   Entrepreneurs know this—that failed ad campaign was really just gathering data and testing. That failed launch was a lesson in marketing. That failed business was chock-full of learnings to make you a better business owner.
   
   As soon as we drop our negative connotations with failure, we level up.
   

3. Financial Anxiety:
   
   If you created a sound budget with some contingency plans, financial anxiety won’t be as pervasive as you transition.
   
   Revisit your budget and adjust as needed. Always be looking for opportunities to cut costs and increase income.
   

4. Loneliness
   
   A massively underappreciated aspect of escaping the rate race. The journey can be lonely—whether you’re actually alone as you travel solo, or you feel alienated from your friends and family.
   
   It’s best to surround yourself with likeminded people. Meetups, expat or entrepreneurial events, and coworking can be great ways to start.
   
   You are reinventing yourself and your life. The hardest part about attaining freedom and leveling up is what you must leave behind, and the initial growing pains.

Conclusion: Take the First Step Today

Already escape the rat race? Or building your plan? Reach out and let me know on Instagram.

The perennial truth remains true: it’s never the perfect time to do it.

It holds true for any major decision—to have children, get married, or leave your job.

Conditions will never be perfect, but we can optimize our timing and build plans to support ourselves as we transition.

Escaping the rat race is a bold move, but it’s one that can change your life.

A life of freedom, purpose, and adventure awaits you. It’s time to get to it.

If this guide was useful, please let us know if you’d like to see more on this topic. Perhaps a deep dive into building online income, more fear-facing and mindset stuff, or how to find your purpose.

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To your continued growth,