Workbook no. 01, rebuilt as a tool
The quiet, strategic 90 day plan for the woman who is done pretending the promotion was the goal.
Before you begin
Let's call it what it is.
You got the degree, the job, the title, the salary that looked good on paper. You did everything right. And now you are sitting in a meeting you did not want, doing work you stopped caring about three years ago, wondering when this started to feel like a life sentence.
This is not a quit your job tomorrow workbook. I am not here to hype you into a decision you will panic reverse on Monday. This is the quiet, strategic plan you build while you are still getting paid, so that when you do leave, it is on your terms, with income already flowing, and without a single group chat telling you that you are being reckless.
Take your time. Go in order. Answer honestly, even the ones that sting.
Your answers save as you type, on this device. Nothing is sent anywhere and there is no login. The numbers do their own arithmetic, chapter two feeds chapter six, and the streak in chapter six is the bit a printed workbook cannot do.
Two minutes of setup below. Then it is yours to come back to every quarter.
This is only used to work out which week you are in, so chapter five can show you the wobble that is actually due rather than all six at once.
Chapters two and six are calculators. They add up the figures you type in and nothing else. They are not financial advice, they do not know your tax position, your pension or your debts, and they cannot tell you whether leaving is a good idea. That decision is yours, and if the numbers are complicated it is worth paying someone qualified to look at them with you.
Rooting for you, Lisa x
Chapter one
Before we build anything, we tell the truth.
This chapter is not about trashing your job. It is about getting clear on what it is actually costing you, financially, physically and otherwise. Most women skip this bit because it feels indulgent. It is not. You cannot plan an exit from a situation you will not name.
Take home divided by your hours times 4.3. Fill both boxes above.
Most women work out their real hourly rate and then go very quiet for a few minutes. If that just happened to you, good. That silence is the start.
Resentment is information. It tells you where your boundaries got crossed and where your time is going on things that do not serve you. Do not dismiss it. Map it. Tick every statement that is true for you right now.
Chapter two
Financial freedom is a vibe. Your exit number is arithmetic.
Here is the good news. You probably do not need to replace your full salary to leave. You need to cover your essentials, build a cushion, and have one income stream that is growing. That is it.
The minimum monthly income that covers the non negotiables. Housing, bills, food, transport, minimum debt payments, essential childcare. Nothing else. Not holidays, not subscriptions, not the nice version.
This is the number that keeps you housed and fed while the business grows. It is almost always smaller than women expect.
Forget your dream salary. You need three numbers, in this order, and they all come out of the baseline above.
Baseline times six. The cushion that sits in savings before you hand your notice in. Your permission slip.
Your baseline, earned from the new stream, for three months running. Hit it a third time and you are free to go.
Baseline times two. When the business pays for the life, not just the bills. The goal, but not the gate.
You leave when you hit Safety and Replace three months running. Not when you hit Freedom. Freedom gets built after the exit, not before it. Chapter six keeps score of this for you.
Chapter three
You have tried five things. None of them stuck. That is not a you problem, it is a choice problem.
Most women do not fail online because they picked wrong. They fail because they picked four things and gave each of them a fifth of themselves. One stream. Six months. Not negotiable.
Four questions. The fourth one answers it about nine times out of ten.
Once this is locked, changing it takes two clicks and a moment of honesty. That is deliberate. If you change your mind in month two, you do not get to. That is the whole point.
Whatever stream you chose, you need a first offer. Not a suite. Not a funnel. One thing, priced to sell, small enough to ship in seven days.
For [who] who struggle with [problem], this is a [format] that helps them [outcome] in [timeframe], for [price].
Fill the boxes and it writes itself here.
Do not launch with a £497 course. Do not launch with four tiers. Do not launch with a waitlist. One small product, one sales page, one week. Then improve it. Most first offers sit between £11 and £47, low enough to be an impulse and high enough to feel like something. If you are nervous, start at £17. You can put it up on sale three.
Chapter four
The exact plan, week by week. You do not need to be creative here. You need to follow.
Chapter five
Your strategy is not the problem. Your brain is.
Your nervous system is wired for the nine to five. Predictable, safe, validating. When you start building something of your own, every part of you will try to drag you back to it. Here is what to expect, and roughly when.
You are not quitting a job. You are buying back your life in small, unglamorous, consistent pieces. Keep going.
The ones that turn up at ten at night after a long day.
Chapter six
You have hit your numbers. Now comes the bit nobody prepares you for.
The rule from chapter two was Safety, plus your baseline earned three months running. This is where you keep score. Log what the new stream actually paid you each month. Months that clear your baseline light up. Three in a row turns black.
Fill in chapter two first, then log a month here.
When both conditions are met, this is the last month of corporate life.
They will almost certainly try. A pay rise, a promotion, a let us discuss flexibility. Remember why you are going. It was never really the money. It was the ceiling, and no counter offer removes a ceiling.
The day after your last day will feel anticlimactic. That is normal. Freedom does not arrive like fireworks. It arrives as a Tuesday where nobody needs a reply from you. Let it be quiet. You earned it.
You did not need permission. You needed a plan. You now have one.
Come back every quarter. Redo chapter one. Update your numbers in chapter two. Keep the reframes close. The woman who finishes this is not the woman who started it, and that was always the point.
Lisa x