It’s a dream of just about everyone who has yet to find a way to make it happen: how can I put my hobby on a paying basis? More to the point, how can I turn my passion into my profession?
You can, but you have to be prepared for the possibility that your passion may not seem like so much fun in the process. It takes a massive amount of money, work and luck to get from this A to this B, but you can do it.
To start, you will need investment. Either you can find investors or you can build on something you are already doing that can provide a monetary or logistical springboard into what you want to be doing next. But this is step one. Forget daydreaming about what could be. You need funding. Full stop.
Next, you will need to modify your passion to fit the marketplace. If you like a certain style or hobby or pursuit, you can either seek out customers who share that passion or find a way to alter that passion to fit with an open market – or both. Don’t be afraid to do something you know will sell well on the way to doing what you “really” want to be doing. Put another way, don’t let EXACTLY what you want get in the way of nearly what you want.
And while you are where you are, do your absolute best in that situation. Even if you aren’t doing what you want where you want, that situation could create the connections or opportunities you need to take that next step.
View your process as a process and not a switch or a button. Very few people can simply make one decision and end up exactly where they want in exactly the way they want. It’s a process, and you need to be aware of both the process and the circumstances that can help you create that next step in the process.
That leads to the next issue. Don’t get stuck. A lot of people have a dream they begin working toward only to get trapped by something more or less similar to what they really want to be doing. There’s no harm in that if your priorities are not achieving that goal. If you want whatever that current situation provides, more power to you … but if you still want what you haven’t yet achieved, you need to be constantly aware of what your next step must be – and you need to be prepared to take it at a moment’s notice.
