A few years back, when I was in my second freshman year of college, (yes you read that correctly) I had to sit down and make the first of a series of similar decisions.
As I logged into my business class’ online portal to take a quiz, I realized that I only had about an hour and a half until the gym closed, and maybe two and a half hours until I had to turn the quiz in.
If I actually tried to work hard and do my best on the quiz then I may have been able to make it to the gym with 10-15 minutes to spare, which was barely enough time to warm up. So I did what any logical fitness addict would do. I dropped the class. This began a downward spiral in my academic career.
For the next few years, whenever I was faced with a class that would take up too much of my gym time, I would solve the issue by relieving the class of its teaching duties.
I would usually start a semester with 5 or 6 classes, and almost always finish with about 3. This led to me being a sophomore while in my 5th year of school. Apparently, I didn’t really understand the whole school thing.
In college, I was working towards a marketing degree, and whenever I would be in a marketing class, I would sometimes daydream about what it would be like if I actually got a job in marketing. I would picture myself in a suit and going to work at a marketing firm and automatically I got bored and irritated at the thought of it. What’s even crazier, every time I pictured myself in the suit, the suit was too big, which was weird. But it was also probably a sign.
Despite these visions, I continue to stick with college because growing up I was always hearing about how important it was to go to college.
All the adults around me were pushing for it. It got to the point that I believed that was my destiny. However, every ten times, someone told me to go to college, there was at least one person who mentioned how college was not for everyone.
Those words fell on deaf ears for five years.
By my fifth year in college, I had started to take boxing way more seriously. I switched to part-time online classes (and stopped taking the classes altogether by the second semester) and used most of my other time training and working on building my brand.
Fast forward five or so years I’m now a successful personal trainer/boxing coach/MMA fighter.
I say all this to say, my passion was right in front of me the whole time, and I didn’t even stop to think about it because going to school and getting a “safe” job was so ingrained into my head.
I was able to turn my passion into a way to create a comfortable living. Because of this, I’m an advocate of chasing after your dreams and doing what you’re most passionate about. However, I am aware that in no way is this an easy task.
With the way society is set up today though, I know you can find a way to make a living doing just about anything. Even if it’s just being paid to teach people how to do a certain thing. I get paid to teach people how to box. There are people who get paid on YouTube teaching people how to paint their garage floor (and it was extremely helpful 🙃).
My point being is that if you know how to do something very well, then you can turn that into a career, whether it’s by getting a job in it or going into business for yourself. As simple as that may sound, to actually put it into practice isn’t as easy.
So below I have come up with a few actionable steps you can do in order to help you achieve finding your passion, then monetizing it.
Grab a piece of paper, or preferably a journal, and answer the questions below:
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Write down three things that you’re really good at (this could literally be anything).
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If money didn’t exist, what would you like to spend your day doing? (write down something that you’re passionate about)
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What steps could you take towards turning this passion into a reality?
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Write down a 1-week goal, a 30-day goal, and a 1-year goal for your passion?
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Find someone to hold you accountable for these goals. You could even place a wager on it. If you don’t achieve a goal then you could force yourself to pay your accountability partner an arbitrary fee.
Keep in mind that once you start working towards your passion, finding success in it will not be easy. There will be a lot of roadblocks ahead. If you’re truly passionate about it then give it AT LEAST three years before you call it quits. And I mean THREE CONSISTENT years of working at least five days a week on it. 3-4 months of work then 6 months of a break repeated for three years does not count. Every day work towards your passion and you’ll have no choice, but to see progress and your dreams come to fruition.