Making Your Passion Your Career (Despite the Naysayers)...

“Don’t let life randomly kick you into the adult you don’t want to become.” 

~Chris Hadfield, astronaut

As a kid, you put zero thought into doing what you loved.

I never thought of asking, “Why not?” Why couldn’t writing be a career? I just accepted that a job or career had to be something you made a realistic, intellectual choice about and not one that came from your heart.  

I heard Oprah say that as a child she was asked what she thought she would do as a career.
She said, “Well I like talking to people.”
The person responded, “Well, you can’t make money doing that.”

7 Failed Careers Later

years later, after I was told I couldn’t make a career out of writing, I ended up with a resume that was four pages long, and days that were like a yearlong run-on sentence.

 

A Return to Love 

Then I reached a turning point, which made me realize I needed to go back to doing what I loved and make it work somehow.

Do you recognize your passion? Not hobbies, or things you like doing for fun sometimes—the one thing that rises above all. Think back to what you loved to do as a child, what you gravitated toward for no reason other than fun, and you will find it.

Are you ready to say yes? Turn your passion into a career one step at a time with the following tips.

1. Tell one stranger.

Even before you’re working at making your passion your day job or income source, go ahead and tell someone that you’re a _______. (Fill in the blank). At any chance you get, do it again.

2. Obsess over it.

Move your passion from the back burner of your mind to the front. Think about it every chance you get if you’re not already doing so. Read about people who have successfully transitioned into the work you want to be doing.

3. Do it for love.

Whatever your passion, forget about making it into a career until you spend enough time reveling in the absolute joy of doing it. Paint, write, dance, take photos, carve wood, whatever it may be for love and only love.

4. Hope above all.

Decide that you will never give up hope

5. Shout it out loud.

Put an ad out, or tell people that you are willing to do some work in your field of passion for pay or for free.

6. Wear the tightest belt ever.

Pull. Tight, if you must (if funds are an issue). I hate this part, but I must be honest. See where you could take some funds from one budget and put it toward a course or mentor so you are not doing this alone.

7. Forget “Easy does it.”

Easy doesn’t do it. Period. You’ll face challenges, and resistance from yourself and others. Do it anyway.

7. Forget “Easy does it.”

Easy doesn’t do it. Period. You’ll face challenges, and resistance from yourself and others. Do it anyway.

Stop Looking at the Odds of Failing

The odds against successfully turning your passion into a career and making money from it seem so overwhelming. So stop looking at the odds.

 

Reclaim the act of doing your passionate work as your career, as if happiness depended upon it.
Because it does.

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