5 Best Tips For Turning Your Passion Into A Career

Do you spend your entire day in a mind-numbingly boring job and go home feeling miserable? Do you feel like you are not fully living your life because you are not doing what you love?

Related: Why Finding Your Passion Isn’t A Pass/Fail Exam

"This is your life and it’s ending one minute at a time," says Tyler Durden in Fight Club. Don’t be disappointed. It is possible for you to spend all your time doing what you like. Let’s look at five steps for turning your passion into a career:

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1. Make Sure You Can Spend The Rest Of Your Life Doing It

Since you are thinking about turning your passion into a career, we assume that you already know what you are passionate about. But there is a very important question that you need to ask yourself: Are you sure you want to do this? If you are thinking that by turning your passion into a job, you won’t need to work hard, you are mistaken. Like every job, it’ll be stressful in many ways. Suppose you enjoy singing and you are considering becoming a professional vocalist. You should know about all the responsibilities that come with the role: negotiating with band members, dealing with event managers, handling money matters, and so on. You need to make sure that your passion won’t cease to be your passion any longer if you turn it into a job. If you are confident, go ahead.

2. Do Your Homework

You need to find out if your passion is a viable career option. If you're considering setting up a business venture that’ll help you pursue your passion, you need to do your research. Find out all that you need to know about the intended business; startup capital, operations, taxation rules, and so on. If there is an ideal role that you want to take up, research about the companies that offer those positions. Your research should go beyond the company background. Find out about the requirements for relevant positions, application process, and so on. It’ll be a great idea to learn about people who are already working in similar positions. You can check their professional profiles to see what their educational background is and what else they had to offer to the company. If the desired role requires some skills and qualifications that you do not already have, you should ask yourself if you are ready to pursue them. At this point, research would also help you discover if you are really ready to work hard to turn your passion into a job. If so, go on to the next step.

3. Connect With The Right People

Whenever you set out to achieve something, you need opportunities. Remember, opportunities are usually connected to people. So, you need to make every effort to meet people who share your passion or who know somebody with similar interests. Don’t hesitate to ask around. You might just find out that your friend’s old buddies are part of a band who are looking for a new vocalist.

4. Look Out For Related Careers

Turning your passion into a career requires you to make sacrifices, at least initially. Just as they say, if life gives you lemons, make lemonade. You should be willing to accept something that is, in one way or another, related to your passion and would help you get there sooner or later. Suppose you want to spend your life servicing the community. You can try and take up a volunteer position in a non-profit organization. Likewise, if you want to be a public policy officer, consider taking up a subordinate position in a research organization that conducts research to inform policy makers.

5. Let It Be A Side-Thing Initially

Before you take a leap and decide to give up your current job to pursue your passion, you should consider experimenting. It’ll give you a better idea of whether you are ready to pursue it full-time. If you want to quit your accounts job to become a full-time writer, you should probably start off as a freelance writer. Before you become a professional vocalist, find an opportunity to perform in a number of gigs. Not surprisingly, when you set out to turn your passion into a career, you might face resistance from family and friends. What you want to do as a career is seen as unacceptable by your parents? Don’t be disappointed and take it slow. Once you are headed in the right direction, your efforts start paying off and you seem happy with what you are doing, it won’t be long before others accept you in your new role. Another great character that captured the imagination of movie goers around the world was Rocky Balboa, who said something along the lines that if you know what you are worth, you need to go out get it, but you need to be willing to take the hits and not make excuses. Are you willing to take that chance?