How To Make Your Passion Your Career

“You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right. If you're not passionate enough from the start, you'll never stick it out.” Steve Jobs

We all have things we’re passionate about, activities we love simply for the joy of doing them. Your passion might be video games or gardening or putting ships into bottles. Whatever your thing is, you enjoy the act for its own sake, rather than any financial reward that you hope will come from it.

Yet inevitably, we all wonder if we would be happier if we could make our passion into a career.

“Could I make a living playing Halo?” you might wonder.

The truth is, you can. Whatever your unique passion is, there’s a really, really good chance you could make a living at it.

If you want to explore that possibility, consider these tips:

Make Connections

Find people that do what you want to do for a living, whether in person or on social media, and connect with them. This could be as simple as actively following them on Twitter or sending them an email to ask to buy them coffee for a chance to pick their brain.

If your passion has a built-in fanbase, like video gamers if becoming a professional Halo player was your thing, connect with them too. Meetup groups are great for this.

Basically, find like-minded people and spend more time with them. Chances are good you’ll make some friends and learn a lot about the industry. The best job opportunities, particularly those that require a significant shift, often come from people you know.

Get Really Damn Good

This one goes without saying but it’s so essential, it has to be on this list.

You don’t necessarily need to be the very best ever but you do need to have a certain level of skill. Playing Halo might be your jam but if you’re usually the worst guy on your fireteam, well, you have some work to do.

And it will feel like work sometimes. Even the things we love most aren’t always a blast and a half. But true passion is something that drives you to do something, without financial reward, even when it feels like work.

Be Vocal

Talk about your passion with anyone who will listen. If you don’t know anyone who shares your passion, consider sharing your love and experience online. Quora and Reddit are great places to join or start conversations about a topic. You’ll find that you learn a lot from teaching, plus you’ll get your name out there as someone who knows the industry. When you go pro, you’ll already have an audience for your product/service.

Find Your Why

Usually, if your reason for doing something is to make money, it isn’t really your passion. Your “why” might be something as simple as “I like playing Halo”, but even that excuse can probably be unpacked into grander ideas like “I like thriving in competition” or “I like working with a team on developing winning strategies.”

When you unpack your why, you’ll usually find a core idea that can be shared by many people across many industries. That will help you connect with people who may not fully understand your passion but could help you nonetheless. Think HR reps who handle the first rounds of interviews, for example.