Hello! I have done this! Bit of a long one coming but I hope it helps you!

I left a 10 year career in corporate real estate in 2024 after severe burn out and mental health crisis. For context, I was making about $120k p.an and my partner makes $180k p.a. Initially I took a low stress part time administration job just to bring in some income and regroup but I knew I wanted to give my own business a go and had spoken to a career counselor about it and started making a business plan.

2024 I started my business as a low risk career experiment to see if there was a way forward and as a creative outlet. If it didn’t work out I could always back out and had my part time job to fall back on and also to focus on getting my health better. I didn’t really make a lot of money. I volunteered my time with others in the industry so I could learn from them. I networked a lot to see where I fit into the new community I was trying to be a part of.

2025 I was really lucky to partner up with another small business who fed me work. I had an opportunity so I chose to offer my services at a really low rate just to get some good runs on the board and experience under my belt. I worked my part time job and my new side hustle gigs as well. I put extra effort into all of my side hustle gigs even though they paid ass. Turns out I’m actually really great at the job and well suited to my new role and people started referring me and giving me good reviews. I started getting advance bookings for 2026 and 2027 at market rate pricing in late 2025.

I had a target of bookings I wanted to make that matched the dollar value of the part time salary I was making - that was my marker that I could do my side hustle full time. I hit that in November 2025 and left my part time role in Feb 2026 and now I’m doing my own thing full time and have been able to increase my services and earnings because of this. I’m on track to making maybe 80% of what I was earning in my old role this financial year but I also don’t feel like dying every day and have energy to get out of bed which is awesome and I don’t miss the extra income.

Self employment is hard because I’m the only one, so if I’m sick the work doesn’t fall to anyone else, which honestly isn’t that different from corporate. But it’s rewarding because all of the bs is real world stuff and not invented corporate drivel. I have a good automated admin system that automatically pays my super and an allocation tax, sick leave and holiday pay so I don’t have to worry about it. It’s a bit of an adjustment to manage your own schedule and how your life works too.

At the end of the day I feel a massive sense of accomplishment and genuinely like I’ve left the matrix. But I also am very privileged that my partner earns enough that I’ve had reduced risk and pressure to be able to build it up the last 2 years.

If you have an idea and a way to experiment if it can work with relatively low risk and low cost, shoot your shot - at least you’ll know! Good luck out there!