Following your passion
This entry was posted on August 25, 2013, in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. 2 Comments (Edit)
A lot of people talk to me about following their passion and quitting their job (probably because that’s what they think I did). As someone wise once said to me: it takes years of hard work and sacrifice to become an overnight success. In my experience this is true.
For the record, I was seeing clients for almost a decade before this officially became my business. Evenings and weekends and every waking moment outside of my 8am-6pm work was the way I built my business. It was a hard graft but because I love my work, it was a joy to do.
I think following your passion means finding what you love doing (not what industry, what product or those things) but what you love doing, the tasks that you’ll be expected to perform everyday. For example: I could have ended up doing anything where I get to meet people, because I like people. I genuinely love meeting and talking to people. I’m that lady that will talk to the person stood next to you in the supermarket and start chatting about what’s in the news or what wonderful meal you’re going to cook with all those ingredients. I like people, I’m interested in people.
If you’re an introvert – perhaps being something like a business trainer isn’t the best job for you because you might be training people on a subject (or product) that you really love but you’ll have to use up a lot more emotional energy than someone who is an extravert because the task involved is being in front of people and being engaging. I was a trainer and loved it, it totally suited my character and I’d happily balance my work by being a trainer a couple of days a week again. It’s an awesome job. But which part of this job drove me bonkers (because there always is at least one part) … admin. If I’d had an admin assistant I’d have been in 7th heaven!
So what tasks do you love doing?
If you’re going to say baking cakes, well ask yourself if you’d still love baking if you had to do it everyday from 7am-6pm for years on end? And if inside your head you’re thinking, yeah but I won’t always be making cakes by then I’ll have a successful business. Think again, did you want to bake cakes or run a business? If you want to run a business it could almost be any business that you’d enjoy running. It’s about enjoying your daily tasks.
So by all means follow your passion, for goodness sakes please follow your passion. But do it because it brings you alive! Do it because you’d rather do that than anything else. Do it because watching tv seems boring in comparison. Don’t worry about whether it makes a viable business. If it’s supposed to, it will. It’s mostly supposed to bring you alive and full of passion, that’s the most important thing!
I suppose what I’m saying is don’t give up your day job. Do your passion around your job. Let it bring you alive and add joy to your life. If it can be a business one day, you’ll know,xx