I Left a 9-5 to Start My Dream Business

In 2016, Jen Hibberd had been in the same PR job for 11 years and was starting to want a change. She had thought about retraining as a fitness instructor or running her own business, but neither came to fruition. She was now pregnant with her second child and had joined a fitness club called Busylizzy for new mothers in Horsham, where she had recently moved. When she discovered the franchise was for sale, it seemed like the dream opportunity she had been looking for.

“This business felt like it was there, waiting for me, ready to go,” says Jen, 44. “That was a big part of my maternity leave – exercising was important to me, as was meeting other new mums and having those conversations about how hard it was. Being able to facilitate this for other people was valuable.

Identifying the elusive “dream job” is often a challenge. Young people leaving school are being pushed into certain careers more than others: teaching is the most popular, according to a Legal and General report, followed by veterinarians, doctors and professional sports, due to their exposure to television or cinema. But in a landscape of economic uncertainty, the criteria for an ambitious career are evolving.

Jen initially went into the business wanting to provide new mothers with the support she herself had received. She expanded Busylizzy’s offerings by adding pregnancy fitness classes, sleep and weaning workshops and new events. “I loved doing it…I felt like I did a really good job.”

But there were downsides. Jen’s salary depended on sales – and at first, she didn’t make any at all. It was an adjustment to a good, stable income and put extra pressure on her husband. Working with 12 instructors spread across six locations was a tricky logistical operation. If something went wrong, it was always up to her to find a solution, meaning she could never take adequate, uninterrupted time off. “It was completely space consuming,” she says. “Even when everything was going well, I had this feeling of panic. I could never get away from my phone. I always had to be present.

The business model, targeting new and expectant mothers, inevitably meant a constant turnover of members. Finding the work increasingly repetitive, Jen ultimately decided to sell the business in 2022.

She contacted her previous company, Liberty, for freelance work and was asked to come back full time. Returning to the same job she had left six years earlier was a strange experience: the company was now entirely remote, the team had changed, and the direction of the company had changed. “I didn’t really intend to go back to Liberty,” she said. “I had imposter syndrome because everyone knew I had worked there and my name was always on the documents. I felt like I had to come in and prove myself.

However, the experience clarified Jen’s priorities: she can disconnect at the end of the day, have a stable income and be part of a team. “I’m their boss, but I’m not THE chief. It’s not entirely up to me,” she says. “What I’m looking for now is the ability to have that work-life balance…It’s the realization that there’s more to life than just your job. »

While Jen’s entry into Busylizzy was more serendipitous, Lydia Bowden’s path to teaching was carefully planned. “Teaching was always something I always wanted to do…(It was) the impact you have on children’s lives – it’s a positive career.” But it didn’t happen like that for me.

At 18, she began three years of primary school. But during her first internship at a school, her dream began to unravel: She would arrive at work at 7 a.m. and leave at 6 p.m., and would have to plan her lessons when she got home. The work was new and overwhelming, and it was hard to stop.

In 2020, she started teaching full-time at a primary school in Lancashire, where she lives, and saw little improvement. “At first you feel this excitement: you survive on adrenaline. But in the first few weeks I found that I was really struggling: mainly with behavior, the amount of work I had to do, and the fact that I felt like I didn’t have time to teach because that there were so many other jobs, like backup, planning and responsibility. I was mainly doing social work rather than my teaching job.

“Because I was so exhausted, my social life went out the window,” she adds. “Relationships were difficult at that time. I was emotionally exhausted – I couldn’t find pleasure in anything. I was in survival mode.

Sal Ashraf, 29, had a similar experience studying medicine. She had never felt the same burning passion as Lydia, but she felt it was the right career to pursue: “I was a high achiever in school and medicine was one of the best careers you could go into.” orient yourself. »

When she was thrust into a busy and chaotic hospital placement during her third year of study at Lancaster University, she began to doubt the path she had chosen. “It made me feel unsafe… It really triggered my anxiety,” Sal says. “There was an invisible pressure of getting such an important degree – which many other people would like to do – and having to do it justice. That’s why it becomes your life.

Sal failed his exams at the end of his third year and retook them over the summer. During her fourth year, she actively began looking for a way out. After consulting with the university’s guidance counselor, she completed a master’s degree in business management between her fourth and fifth years of medical school (an option for all medical students), which sparked the desire to learn more about the business world. She completed her medical degree, secured a place on a graduate program at an aerospace company, and in September 2023, started her current job in human resources in the pharmaceutical industry.

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“In this hustle and bustle culture, this ‘boss babe’ culture, it’s all ‘build your own business, build your own success.’ Not everyone wanna to do that,” Sal said. “Some people are happy with an average 9 to 5, and there’s nothing wrong with that, I think.”

For Lydia, the solution also lay in a more corporate role. Since 2022, she has worked at educational publisher Twinkl, first as a content editor and now as production manager. But giving up something she had worked hard for wasn’t easy. “You feel like you’ve failed.” You feel like it’s you, like you’re not strong enough. I had everything in mind about what my life would be like, but in the end it didn’t turn out that way. It was difficult to accept,” she says. “Even now, a lot of people ask me if I’m going to go back to teaching. They don’t understand why I wanted to leave.

Initially, the new role represented a pay cut, but, like Sal’s HR role, it offered flexible working hours, the ability to manage their own time and a healthy work-life balance. And with that came a new sense of perspective. “Within the first three months, I started to feel like I was coming back,” says Lydia. “I looked forward to things, I found things funny again. I started doing things in the evening and taking care of myself, which I had lost while I was teaching.

“I used to think that your work was your purpose – that it was important to have work that was fulfilling and had a big impact,” she adds. “But if it comes at the cost of your personal life and mental health, it’s not worth it.”