ExecutiveChronicles | How to Turn Your Passion into a Career | When you love what you do, even the tough days are far more exciting. When you love what you do, you immediately have more energy, more drive, and more incentive to pursue your passions and reach those goals. You will never have the same amount of motivation working in a job you don’t care for or even hate. You can work hard, yes, but if you aren’t in a situation that also helps you thrive, you will find yourself working hard right towards burnout.
There is enough room in the world to find a way to pursue your passion professionally in one way or another. At a minimum, you can absolutely pursue your passion as a hobby or as a side gig. With the right focus, however, you can turn that hobby or side gig into a full-time career.
It isn’t easy, and if you don’t have a safety net, it can be very daunting, but with this guide, you’ll be able to put aside more time for the passions you love and have a better idea of how to transform that passion into a career.
Dedicate Time and Make it Routine
The only way you will ever be able to turn your passion into a career is to dedicate time to it. What this means will be different for everyone. For those who are creative and love working with their hands, it means taking time to work on projects every day. If you are passionate about a cause, then advocating for it online, learning, and even writing about it can be just what you need to make that transition.
Grow an Online Audience
Having an online audience is the single best way to convert your passion into a career. If you create something, you can show that process and eventually even start selling your pieces. If you are an advocate, then you can start to integrate yourself into that community and really start making changes for the better. Whether you need people to listen to you, buy from you, or learn from you, having an audience is a great place to start, and capturing your journey as you slowly dedicate more time can be just the ticket.
Learn and Develop
Every passion involves skill and knowledge, and dedicating your time to learning new things and developing your skill set will always help you. In some cases, it can help you directly. Taking online courses, reading books, attending talks, and the like can all make you more knowledgeable and ready to take on a new career path.
In other instances learning and developing your skills will help you in softer ways either by helping you understand the history or new techniques.
Regardless of where you are at, there is always further to go, and learning and dedicating time to improving on your skill set and knowledge is a great way to commit to your passion further.
Know Where You Can Take Your Passion
There are so many different ways you can turn a passion into a career. A creative who makes products can sell stock, yes, but they can also sell workshops and tutorials or partner with bigger brands as a designer. There are quite frankly so many different ways you can commit to your passion. You can work for others, or you can work for yourself. You can sell products, or you can mentor.
Know what the best route is for you, and don’t be afraid to diversify. Offering different types of products and services can help you grow and really create a lasting business model. The only caveat is you never want to spread yourself too thin. There are so many tips on how to start your own creative business or get started in a new career path, and workshopping those tips and devising the best strategy for you is the best way to take that first step from passion to a career.
Don’t Be Afraid to Backtrack
If one idea fails, go back to the drawing board. Try out different approaches, and explore more about how you want to best tackle your passion as a career. Some just don’t suit owning a small business and operating at home alone. Until you can afford to launch properly, you may be better suited working on another team or even in a more corporate situation until that no longer works for you.
Life is a journey, and so too is your career. Try things, try other things, and then keep trying. Even if you find a route that felt so perfect in the past, things change, and you may need to reconsider from there. There is no wrong or right way forward, so long as you put that first step forward.
