How to Make Money Doing What You Love Learn advanced self-improvement techniques that will get you out of the job you hate and into making money by doing what you love.

On your path towards living a more purpose-driven life, and your journey to learn to do what you love for a living, do you sometimes feel like you’re going backwards?  Does it feel like the world you’ve built around you is falling apart?  Does every step forward seem like it’s also coupled with three steps back?

The journey towards living your purpose-driven life can definitely seem like that, especially in the initial stages of your awakening towards living a life of passion.  You finally figure out what you truly want to do with your life and you start making progress towards it, but at the same time things start to fall apart in your life which felt like they were previously secure or “taken care of”.

Perhaps it’s your finances that start to suffer, or maybe your relationships, or maybe even your health.  Don’t let this discourage you.  When you make a shift in your life to pursue your true passion, things are going to change.  Sometimes during that change there are things that need to “fall apart” to make room for new things.

A coach I worked with last year told me once that “There’s always breakdown before breakthrough.”  This “breakdown” can manifest itself in many different ways.  As I mentioned in my post ( “Follow Your True Purpose in 2008 or Suffer” ) a few days ago, there seems to be a lot of “breaking down” going on right now with people.  In the United States there’s all these foreclosures and people losing their homes for example.

Just last year, TV shows used to show how supposedly it’s so easy to just buy a property for $200,000, put in $20,000 in renovations (that someone else does for you), and “flip” it for $350,000 making a hefty $130,000 profit in 2 months.  Every Joe, Dick and Harry was getting into the “house flipping” game after watching an episode of “Flip That House”.  No real estate experience, no renovating experience, no sales experience, no business experience, nothing.  Common sense was replaced by the dollar signs in people’s eyes.  Then the market fell apart.

Now when I turn on the TV I see “Holmes on Homes” ripping apart homes that were slapped together by people who really didn’t know what they were doing and were just out to make a quick buck.  In one episode I saw an incorrectly installed heating system that took almost $100,000 to fix!  On another home, the kitchen floor was sinking on one side due to improper construction to the point where if you put a marble on the counter-top it would roll totally to one side.

What’s happening is that people are starting to awaken to the fact that they don’t want to be going to work at a job they hate doing.  So they’re looking for alternatives, but instead of taking the time to figure out their purpose and passion in life they are chasing the mighty $$$$ signs.  They think that they’ll follow this path:

Leave Work > Make Lots of $$$$ Doing Something That’s Highly Profitable > Then “Retire” and Do What I Love

This path is an illusion.  People get seduced by it all the time.  I’ve been there.  There’s also this path:

Stay at Work Doing What You Hate > Play the Lottery / Casino / Stock Market > Instant Millions > Then “Retire” and Do What I Love

This path is also an illusion.  A lot of people play this game as well.

The path that I advocate following is:

Find Your Purpose / Passion > Follow your Purpose / Passion > Find Ways to Make $ Doing What You Love > Retire from “Work” but Keep Doing What You Love

The great news about this path is that if you’re working at a job right now that you make $3,000/month from, but you’re not doing what you love, all you have to do is figure out how to make $3,000/month by doing what you love and YOU’RE RETIRED!  No, you’re not retired in the sense that you sit around on a lawn chair watching the grass grow, but you’re “retired” in the sense that you no longer “work for money”.  You’re now working on projects that you enjoy working on and you just happen to make money from them as well… what could be more fulfilling!?

You don’t need to have a Million Dollars to do that!  When I look at people like Steve Pavlina and John Chow, who clearly love what they do with their Blogs and they make more than $25,000/month each from their Blogs I totally see them as “Retired” people.  They never have to wake up in the morning feeling like they have to “go to work”.  They just wake up, do what they love, and get paid for it.  Isn’t that awesome?

The challenge is that sometimes when we pursue this path, it may feel like we’re going backwards.  Why?  Well, because you may not be as good at making money doing what you love as you are at making money doing what you “don’t love”.  For example, let’s say that your true passion is working with animals.  You enjoy training dogs, grooming them, playing with them, taking care of them etc.

Let’s say that your dream is to open up a dog training/grooming business where you help people build better relationships with their dogs.  However, right now you work full time at a retail store where you are a manager making $48,000/year.  You begin to work on your dog school business, but you’re only making $250/m from it so far with just a few clients.  Because you’re working both full time and on your business, some things start falling apart in your personal life though because you no longer have as much time to spend time with your friends going out to movies or out for dinner.

You start to feel discouraged.  Maybe one of the clients ends up moving and you’re now down to only making $200/m from your business.  Also, because you’re not so excited about your management job anymore you missed your quarterly bonus and lost $600 you normally get extra every quarter.  Things start to feel gloomy.

However, let me illustrate what’s really happening here because you may be too close to the situation to see it from an objective standpoint.

Imagine yourself before you embarked on your journey to purpose you passion of working with animals.

Before:

“Working” for a Living: $4,000/month
“Doing What You Love” for a Living: $0/month
Total Income: $4,000/month
Total Expenses: ~$4,000/month (Most people live paycheck to paycheck)
Percentage of Work vs. Play: 100% Working / 0% Doing What You Love

After:

“Working” for a Living: $4,000/month
“Doing What You Love” for a Living: $200/month
Total Income: $4,200/month
Total Expenses: ~$4,000/month
Percentage of Work vs. Play: 95% Working / 5% Doing What You Love

See what’s happening here?  As a percentage of your total income, you’re making 95% of your income still “working” and 5% doing what you love.  That’s a great start!  Remember that it probably took you +10 years to get to the point where you’re making that $4,000/month from your “job”, so don’t expect to replace that income in one week.  It might take a bit of time.  Chances are, however that it probably won’t take anywhere near as long as it took you to make the money you make doing “work” because we are always WAY more productive and valuable when we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing, following our purpose.

Also, keep in mind that as long as you don’t increase your expenses every month, your “Doing What You Love” income just needs to match your “Working” income (50/50).  Meaning, if you’re making $200 doing what you love, you just need to grow that to $4,000 to technically be able to “retire”.  So, if you get to $400/month, you’re already 10% of the way there.

Now, here’s what you might start to see happening as you do this.  As your income grows doing what you love, you may find that through a series of strange co-incidences you may all of a sudden start making less money doing your job.  A lot of times this may be through no fault of your own.  Meaning, that $4,000/month management job might all of a sudden end, because the owner decides to shut down the store and re-open up another one in a different mall but because it’s a new store he can’t afford to pay you $4,000/month so he either offers to lay you off, or give you the option of taking the new position for $3,000/month to start with performance bonuses.

This typically happens as soon as you take a few steps forward following your own dream.  It’s like the Universe begins to “disassemble” your previous “security blanket” as soon as you start moving in the right direction.  It’s doing this to help you, but most of us freak out and take a defensive stance during this time.  In this fictitious example the person might decide to “buckle down” and try to get their “work” back to the $4,000/month income level they were accustomed to.  To do this they might need to put more energy back into “work” and that takes away time from pursuing their dream business.  Don’t allow yourself to get distracted like that.

Expect that things are going to “disassemble” themselves in your “previous life” as you begin to pursue your new life.  That’s just the Universe showing you support.

Here’s what that support (breakdown) might look like:

• Loss or decrease in income at your current work / employment
• Feeling more and more disconnected from “friends” and people who don’t have the courage to pursue their dreams, so they try to protect discourage you from making a mistake following your dream
• Growing more and more tired and drained at your current work
• Lack of patience
• Self doubt creeps in. “Who am I to think I can do this?”

Understand that these feelings are all normal.  It’s a transition phase.  Don’t be scared.  You’re not going through all of this because you had a brain fart and decided to pursue your dream and the Universe is trying to punish you for trying to follow your dream.  You’re going through this because it’s a necessary process of “letting go” of your past self/identity.  You are essentially becoming a new person, a totally new identity that no longer “works” for a living and now does what you love.  This WILL take some adjustment.

Don’t get discouraged, just keep moving forward.  Keep focusing on what you truly are passionate about doing and know that the Universe will support you.  Sometimes the best way it will do that is by disassembling things that you currently are clinging onto.  The reason this happens is because in your limited little mind you might be thinking that it might take 2 years for you to move into doing what you love, but the Universe knows that it might only take 3 months, so it starts “disassembling” things at a much quicker pace than your mind feels comfortable with.  You start to panic and think “Oh my God, what’s happening!?”

Don’t worry…everything is ok… just keep trusting and keep moving forward.

You might go through a little bit of temporary discomfort but you’re going to emerge a totally new person on the other side.  It’s kind of like going through bootcamp in the Army.  You need to go through that process to get “re-shaped” into a new identity that’s a lot stronger on the other side.

As I mentioned before, it seems like 2008 is really pushing a lot of people forward.  The Universe is busy at “disassembling” things for everyone.  Those that are moving forward are going to emerge on the other side as strong, independant and fulfilled people, while those who are dearly trying to cling onto their “old selves” are going to suffer needlessly.

I don’t mean this to sound like a doom-and-gloom post, but I’m just reporting what I’ve been witnessing when I look around.  If it’s not happening in your life, then that’s great, perhaps you’re already on your true path and that’s awesome, but for those that are feeling fear right now due to this transition process, know that you’re being supported.  The only direction to go in is forward.  Don’t look back.

When you feel like every step you take forward results in a couple steps back being taken in other parts of your life, know that you’re probably on the right track and the Universe is probably just lending you a helping hand and “gently” pushing you along.