Whether you have one interest or many, choosing a career that allows you to follow your passion can be very rewarding — if you do it strategically.
“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” – Pablo Picasso
When I think about all the clients I’ve counselled and coached over the years, the majority are unhappy at work and few love what they do.
Typically the unhappy people chose their career for reasons that weren't related to their passions, interests and personality traits. More often than not, they thought they were being practical or realistic by securing their “good job”. I suspect they didn't anticipate spending every Sunday evening filled with dread, just thinking about surviving the upcoming week.
If you're miserable at work and/or your business isn't meeting your expectations, it's never too late to make a change. When you take some time to explore your choices and your priorities, it really is possible to find or to create rewarding work you love.
To find a way to follow your passion that will lead to success, you need to analyze three main factors:
- What are you passionate about?
- What are you good at?
- How can you combine your passions and skills to find work that people actually want to pay you for?
Let's take a look at these separately.
What are your passions?
What does your ideal day look like for you? What will you do? Who will you do it with? What would you love to talk about or do all day long? Ask yourself these questions to find your passion.
What are you good at?
What are your best skills, based on your experience, education and training? We call these “transferable skills”, which are skills that you've learned that can be applied to other settings.
When you have over 10,000 hours of current experience doing something, you can consider yourself an expert. This equates to about five years of full time work, or longer if it's part time. Pay particular attention to your expert skills, yet don't exclude your natural talents and things you love doing, even if you have less experience. Skills can always be learned and improved upon.
You may have learned some of your top skills through life experiences. What are some of the biggest challenges you have overcome? What do people ask you for advice or help with? What do people compliment you about?
How can you combine your passions and skills to find work that people want to pay you for?
This is the factor that is often overlooked and leads to disappointment. It's very important to be creative yet realistic; and to pay attention to where your skills are in demand.
For example, I worked in the financial industry for eleven years before I decided to go back to university. I had started working part time in a bank while completing my psychology degree, was promoted a few times and didn't return to school for graduate studies as planned. I found that I loved business, marketing, and financial counselling but I grew increasingly uncomfortable with promoting the use of credit to meet my sales quotas. So I left. I obtained my social work degree and counselled and coached clients in the vocational rehabilitation field for seventeen years. I satisfied my passion for business by engaging part time in online marketing.
A hypnotist helped me to cope with work stress when I was nearing burnout at my job, and I was shocked at how well hypnosis worked. I began to study hypnotherapy for personal development and discovered a new passion. Once I announced on social media that I was newly certified as a hypnotherapist, dozens of people began asking me to help them. I started a part time hypnotherapy practice, and promoted my services effectively due to my marketing experience. Within three years I was so busy that I quit my job and embarked on a new career at age 50.
When COVID-19 arrived in 2020, people began approaching me for counselling services. As my hypnotherapy business slowed during the lockdown despite offering online sessions, I decided to add counselling services to my private practice. I developed a counselling approach using several therapies, my knowledge of hypnosis and my understanding of how our subconscious mind influences our thoughts, emotions and behaviour. This has proven to be very successful. I am once again booked solid with a wait list, and I love what I do.
Pay attention to supply and demand, and adjust accordingly.
Now it's your turn.
How can you use your natural skills and abilities to pursue your passion and make a difference?
Ask yourself what problems you want to solve. The bigger the problem, the more people will be happy to pay you to help them resolve it.
Research the market and be honest with yourself. If following your passion doesn't lead to solving problems for people, you may be challenged to earn a living by doing so. In these situations, you might want to pursue your passion through volunteer work, a hobby, part time work or a small side business. You can also start blogging about your passion. When you gain enough followers, you will attract sponsors and be in a better position to monetize your blog.
Most people's interests and passions evolve as time goes on. Coincidentally, most adults also change careers seven to twelve times, usually due to economic conditions beyond their control.
Often people find that circumstances eventually lead them to a meaningful career that incorporates their unique set of experiences and skills they developed over time. When one finds a career that is such a perfect fit for them, they may feel they have found their life purpose. It's an exhilarating feeling!
It honestly doesn't feel like work when you are doing what you love.
Imagine how incredible it would feel to wake up every morning, inspired and excited to get to work. If this seems like an impossible dream to you, I implore you to give some thought to making a change.
Life is far too short to spend 40 hours each week in a self-imposed hell.
At the end of the day, all that really matters is happiness. Most of us need to work, and it's easy to enjoy your work when you strategically pursue your passion.
You can make it happen!
Did this help you? I'd love to hear from you.
If you found these strategies helped you to realize when following your passion leads to success, please comment below and share this post.
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Contact my office for a free 15 minute consultation to discuss how my services can help you to pursue your passion and design a life you love.
I really appreciate your thoughts. Loved it !
I must say that working with passion is really a good way to get the clients and serve them better. Skills are more important when providing services to the clients when they have some problems, and then they come to us to sort it out and we a professional would love to work with them and provide better solutions.