Facilitating your passions:
A look into why finding work which facilitates your passion could work for you. Touching on;
- Tweaking your lifestyle to facilitate your passions
- Making more time for what you love
‘Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.’
Hands up if you have seen this quote on either your Facebook, Twitter or Instagram feed at least 10 times? These type of quotes are a social media guru’s dreams and the normal hard working human’s worst nightmares.
‘Find the job you love!’
‘Create a business around your passions’
This is all questionable advice without any context. Business coaches, internet entrepreneurs all peddle this bullshit to inspire you into buying their products and fuelling their ego further.
People seek that ‘one true passion’; the one thing which can make them happy in their work when in reality as humans we have multiple passions and so many layers of life which make us happy.
Here are the things I love:
- Going on a trek with my wife and daughter with no plans
- Not having to wake up to an alarm clock Monday – Friday
- Eating my body weight in Mexican food
- Exploring new countries; understanding cultures
- Talking to grandparents about them growing up
- Having the ability to take an extended break from work when I need it
- Not having to commute to an office daily
- Seeing my daughter grow up without being away from home
My work as a digital marketing consultant & business owner is not built around my passions or the things I love, but my work does facilitate those passions. I’ve created a business which allows me the time to explore the things I love on a regular basis.
Is my business built on my passions? Of course not. But am I passionate about helping people in my work? Hell yes!
There’s no profitable, sustainable business which involves going for a walk with your wife or taking time to understand the lives of your Grandparents. But why does there need to be? Why can’t they just be passions your work allows you to do?
People seek this ‘passion filled’ lifestyle when in reality you can get close to that by doing what you are skilled at on your own terms.
Am I enthused to help clients with their businesses. Yes! Do I sometimes want to close down my email and hide in my garden shed. You bet!
Do something you enjoy and do it well. It doesn’t need to be your one true passion.
My wife makes amazing framed images for our friend’s weddings or child’s first birthdays. They are awesome. Taking that skill and making it into a business is where it becomes hard. Imagine the volume of sales she would have to accrue via Etsy to make an honest living. The customer support, delivery, self promotion outside of the making stage.
Some things are better off staying as a passion.
Now don’t get me wrong I’m not stifling creativity here. I’m merely questioning whether advice to ‘follow your passion’ makes sense or does it make more sense to create a lifestyle where you enjoy those passions and you can be creative you know….just for fun?
The problem is your lifestyle; your work and trying to find a solution which allows you to do the things you love. Perhaps look at your own life and try and achieve change rather than listening to a self help guru online who doesn’t know you and just wants your hard earned, time inducing money.