Monday, May 14, 2012

Follow Your Passion. Really?


I have been reading a lot of different articles about following your passion and finding a job that makes your heart sing. Really? Is it possible to actually have a job that suits your passion. A job that is actually your passion?

 I think musicians find that their job is their passion and maybe artists too. I have a friend that is a super editor/copywriter and she started a business that is totally her passion. I know a twenty something man who is moving speedily upward in a funky SEO company and he loves his job. These people get paid to do what they are passionate about.

When you are in your twenties there are a lot of jobs that light us up. So what happens as we age. Do we get jaded? What does that really mean though? The same job that once made us happy no longer does. Is the secret to remaining passionate on a job then to change jobs frequently?

Barry Schwartz in his TED talk on happiness suggests that having too many choices makes happiness elusive. That the secret of happiness comes from fewer choices. His studies suggest that as choices multiply, so do our expectations. The secret to happiness, according to Schwartz is lower expectations. Hmmmm.... Lower expectations, fewer choices. If there are fewer choices we are indeed more easily satisfied with where we end up. When you have the whole world to choose from there will always be the road not taken.

As we age, we get increasingly altruistic, and more focused on the things that make us truly tick and are thus, we are unwilling to spend the majority of our day doing things that do not align with the person we are becoming. And our purpose that is becoming clearer.

This is where there sits a huge leap of faith.  There are those who make the leap and find new meaning and there are those who remain in their safe place with their safe income but not their passion.  It is a trade off for sure.  Those who go, often trade money for passion and settle with earning less in the beginning.

But there are ways through multiple streams of income to define multiple paths that make your heart sing and do a little bit of each.  The end result is that you are spending most of your time doing fulfilling work and your sum total income could possibly touch your income in your previous life of passionless work. Definitely worth a second look.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Jump and the Net Will Appear

"In seeking our freedom we liberate our potential to accomplish incredible things" Danielle La Porte in Fire Starter Sessions .

When we are young we have a true appreciation of our freedom. Freedom of movement, to sing out loud, to run all day without a destination, to approach strangers because you think you might want to know them.

When we get older we have trouble defining what true freedom can look like.  We have responsibilities, jobs, kids and mortgages that limit our willingness to think about freedom as anything other than a dream. Freedom appears 'out there' as something that is no longer possible because of the decisions we have made.  Or is it?

If freedom liberates our potential to accomplish incredible things then can you just leap and hope you will find your incredible thing?  Sounds scary.  Finding your incredible thing seems like the wisdom of the self help gurus online and I always envisioned that I might be the exception to the ``Jump and the net will appear`` idea. As the exception to this exciting idea, I land on the pavement of life with nothing to show for the fifty year stint to date. A risky proposition this jumping without a net.

So is there a temporary net that you can put out to at least buffer the fall if it does happen. Sometimes you get a push, in the form of a pink slip, and you go into free fall that was not of your own making. Other times you just have to jump. You can plan the jump timing though. And you can create a short term net to protect you until you explore and find your place in the new version that is your life.

I will detail some ideas for that short term net in posts to come.  There are lots of them.

So sign up to receive free regular updates to my blog so you won`t miss the great ideas that will let you create your own path to freedom.
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