The first step out of tech isn't your resume. It's your ideal Saturday.
A simple exercise to start detaching from your identity as a tech worker.
“Cozy.”
That’s how my new client described her ideal Saturday, two years from now.
There’s a dopey golden retriever. Waking up naturally. A heated blanket. Cooking food from her garden.
She’s been in tech for eleven years. She hasn’t felt cozy on a Saturday — without the work stuff running in the background — in a long time.
I help women leave tech by doing something very simple: imagining their life as if they weren’t in tech anymore.
Just: what does your Saturday look like when you’re free?
We have to start there, because tech is good at making you forget you wanted something more than tech itself. It replaces your desires with KPIs. It replaces your instincts with performance reviews. It replaces the version of you that had a self with a version that has a job title.
And then it offers you more money to stay, and you do, and another quarter passes.
But imagine not having to play that game anymore.
No more looking for direction from a maniac CEO’s social media. No more lying to yourself that one more quarter should be fine. No more ignoring the part of you that’s been quietly begging you to walk toward something better — and more fun. No more pressure to look hot-but-not-too-hot, all while being handed dead-end projects dressed up as opportunities. No more hearing “This might not be the right environment for you” when you were simply trying to name a real risk.
Here’s the truth: overruling your body’s exit cues doesn’t build your future. It builds theirs. The billionaires and their yes-men get richer. And when the time comes, they lay you off by referencing your total comp. You’re a row on a spreadsheet.
So yeah. We need to talk about your ideal Saturday. It’s the first step to rebuilding a vision.
At first, it’s hard to answer. The imagination-for-fun muscle is atrophied. But my clients start thawing within minutes.
“I walk to the farmers market because I ran out of honey.” I love the specifics.
And every time I guide a client through this exercise, the same thing rises to the top: softness.
These women are exhausted by the hard exterior and interior they’ve had to maintain to survive in tech. When all they actually want is golden retriever cuddles and a garden with too many zucchinis.
So their ideal Saturday becomes our baseline. The north star we starting toward together.
Then I help them turn the table: use the hardness to get the softness. Relentless pursuit, ruthless prioritization, and running through brick walls. All of it, in service of the garden.
So now: your turn.
Below are some prompts from my Ideal Saturday exercise. Grab something warm to drink. Find a quiet corner.
There’s one rule: in this vision, you no longer work in tech.
Don’t worry about how you pay your bills yet. Just walk through your perfect Saturday two years from now: here.