How did you find your passion?

[Sighclone Fan]

If you are looking to start a business - first find out what the market needs. Because the market/economy is always changing, new opportunities for businesses always arise. Something that may have worked 5 years ago, may not be successful a year from now, and vice versa.

 

[ruxCYtable]

I'm 40 and still haven't. I believe I won't be truly happy in my career until I'm my own boss but I can't seem to make myself pull the trigger. I guess I'll just hang around my current job till I get fired and then I'll try something new.

 

[SpokaneCY]

I think it's less about finding your passion and more about aligning your natural God given talents to your line of work. For example, my passion is golf, but there is no way I'll be able to make money playing golf. I certainly don't want to be a golf pro or manage a golf course because that means I'm working in golf rather than playing golf.

My God given talents is I'm a people person like my dad. I love to talk to new people, learn about them, their life, their kids, their problems. I truly love to talk to people and learn from them as well as teach them. So, knowing that, there were a ton of careers I could go into, Financial Planning, Teaching, many kinds of Sales/Relationship/Account Mgmt jobs, etc... I love numbers, math and finance and it comes natural to me to run through numbers in my head, so I landing on Financial Planning/Business Consulting and I love it, plus I get to golf a lot!

Although I love numbers, I could never do a job where I stare at spreadsheets all day or sit behind a computer all day as I need interaction with people, face-to-face. I have friends who hate to talk to people and they love staring at spreadsheets. I have a friend who is a CPA and does taxes for people all day everyday which I would hate but she loves it as it combines her love of Accounting with people interaction.

Also, there are some pretty cool personality tests which pop up if you Google them. I've taken many tests to help me identify my strenghts and weaknesses and that really helped me identify what makes me happy doing and what makes me miserable.

Lots of wisdom in this post. Maybe its a generationla thing, but sometimes work is just that --- work. I think its pretty rare to find that 1 flaming passion that can be your career and make it work.

I started off as a CPA and then several internal and external accounting positions but it turns out I'm ADD... Bad fit. Take some time and find out more about yourself - your strengths and weaknesses, personality tests - then use that to select or deselect out certain careers. For me, ADD and hating details did not make for a great CPA. But I thrive in facilitation and marketing roles, thus my current position managing interstate natural gas pipeliens (HUGELY a relationship business) is a pure fit. Passion? No, but I love it enough to never want to leave.

 

[CLONECONES]

once you realize 99% of jobs are not very much fun and that you're doing it strictly for the money/benefits your life will be better

just grind through the days and enjoy time off

 

[CycloneEye]

The failure rates aren't just bad for the first year. I made just over three, but it wouldn't have felt secure until a 5th or 6th, and then only if those were profitable years or I had enough income otherwise for things to work out.

Definitely have a contingency plan in case of failure, or low enough overhead that failure isn't a problem.

Saving money like crazy for my contingency plan. Seriously just eggs and bean and bread.

 

[CycloneEye]

I think it's less about finding your passion and more about aligning your natural God given talents to your line of work. For example, my passion is golf, but there is no way I'll be able to make money playing golf. I certainly don't want to be a golf pro or manage a golf course because that means I'm working in golf rather than playing golf.

My God given talents is I'm a people person like my dad. I love to talk to new people, learn about them, their life, their kids, their problems. I truly love to talk to people and learn from them as well as teach them. So, knowing that, there were a ton of careers I could go into, Financial Planning, Teaching, many kinds of Sales/Relationship/Account Mgmt jobs, etc... I love numbers, math and finance and it comes natural to me to run through numbers in my head, so I landing on Financial Planning/Business Consulting and I love it, plus I get to golf a lot!

Although I love numbers, I could never do a job where I stare at spreadsheets all day or sit behind a computer all day as I need interaction with people, face-to-face. I have friends who hate to talk to people and they love staring at spreadsheets. I have a friend who is a CPA and does taxes for people all day everyday which I would hate but she loves it as it combines her love of Accounting with people interaction.

Also, there are some pretty cool personality tests which pop up if you Google them. I've taken many tests to help me identify my strenghts and weaknesses and that really helped me identify what makes me happy doing and what makes me miserable.

Good point. Not about what you're interested in but what you're good at. Important distincition IMO.

 

[CycloneEye]

Seems like pretty sound advice. I would add my 2 cents. Is there anything you've ever wanted to do but didn't because someone said it was too hard, too much time or money needed, etc....? In high school, I decided I wanted to be a vet, not just because I loved animals but because I also love meeting/talking to people, and really loved biology. I talked myself out of it early on since I didn't really enjoy school (what high school kid does?) I also had several people tell me it was too hard to get in to school, school was too hard, blah, blah, blah. While in undergrad, I realized I could do whatever the hell I wanted and decided to pursue what was really pulling me in a certain direction. I am so happy I did. I truly feel (cue the sappy music) that I am one of those people that never will work a day in thier life due to the love of my field. Don't listen to people that say you are supposed to be miserable at work. If that's true, you owe it to yourself to change (sounds like you've already done that step.)

The huge benefit of my job is that is provides a good work/life balance so I can pursue my other passions like hunting/fishing/cyclone football etc....

The funny thing about me is that some days, I think if I had not gone to college, I would be cutting meat at our family meat processing plant, and would still be happy. It's harder physical work, but still rewarding in it's own way.

Great story! Kind of reminds me like that Rudy movie. Good to know there's a happy ending on the other side and that it IS worth it.

 

[CyFan61]

Are you / Will you be a student at ISU? If so, you absolutely need to take advantage of the Career Explorations office here. They are incredible and can help you infinitely better than anyone on this website. Their office is ranked top 10 in the nation.

 

[Goothrey]

When I first flew.