The advice that everyone likes to tell you is to do what you love. On the surface it’s great advice. What you do as a job will fill a large part of your time and life. So if you love baking at home for your family then why not quit the job you don’t find fulfilling and start a bakery? You’d love it that much more if you were doing it full time, right? But if you start a business doing what you love there is a good chance you might end up loving to hate it. That passion you once had can quickly grow into hate. You changed that fun thing you loved and made it a job. The joy you had can be lost when you’re spending a good amount of time dealing with paperwork and trying to make customers and clients happy. Maybe you realize you loved baking because it was an escape from your other job. Now you have no escape or hobby because this is what is paying your bills. And while starting this new business you found a new love for photography and you decide to give up baking and start a photography business. Now the cycle starts over… never quite happy because you are always discovering new and exciting things.
There are a lot of things I love to do but I don’t want to make it my job because I know I could grow to hate it. One way I’ve been able to keep my passion for what I’m doing is to focus on loving what I’m doing. Embracing and appreciating what I’m doing at this very moment. I may not always like every thing I have to do but I’ve learned that even the parts I may not like at the moment are all parts of the bigger piece. In building a business you can get bogged down in a lot of other duties that take time away from your true love for a little while. This can frustrate you and make you regret doing what you love. I’ve learned to accept that each part of my business is important. I took this career path because I wanted to do what I love; motion graphics. But I now I’ve found that I love what I do; I love building a business. My passion has grown and evolved, its not just based in creating motion graphics but its also in creating a business. You never know what path your life is going to take you down and you might find something you love doing that surprises you.
Another way I’ve found to stay focused on my passion is to hire someone to handle the parts of my business that I don’t like doing. For many, the moment they aren’t doing the the thing they love to do they are going to start to hate that very thing they loved in the first place. If you don’t like talking to clients or customers then hire someone that does so you can stay focused on what you love doing and together you can build something great. The only way to do great work is to love what you do.
Make sure that if you do what you love that you also try to love what you do. Every day is a gift and we don’t get to do it over again.
