It may be time to reread my book, "Do What You Love and the Money Will Follow", except deciding what I love enough to do it for work and be successful at it has always been a problem. Of course the last time I read it was over a decade ago and perhaps I more self aware this time around.
Since then I deeply researched going to culinary school and was set to apply before fate intervened and I moved to California. Since I read it I became a doula, something I love a great deal but without doing teaching and other related things (which is hard because many hospitals only use RNs to teach childbirth classes), one can't make a living doing this. Not easily anyway, been there, done that. Since then I became reacquainted with Dance New England (please excuse the incredibly dated site, if you need work for your portfolio and want to redo it, I beg of you, contact me!) which has given my tribe and increased my event planning skills. In the time since I read it I began and dropped out of graduate school. I have moved from Massachusetts to California and to Ohio. My life has changed a lot. But has my passion, assuming I can uncover it.
For eons now I have wished to sit down with a life coach who would help me, make me, draw out of me what I am hiding from myself. Now of course there is a fear that comes with that wish, that I will unbury so much that it will turn my life upside and shake it like a snow globe only nothing is glued down.
So dear readers if you have ideas, books or websites to recommend, opinions to weigh in on what I should do with my life, I encourage, hell I beseech you - comment! Yes I am resorting to asking virtual (ha!) strangers to offer advice on my life. Did I mention I'd a tad desperate.
3 comments:
eeh, I've kind of always been in the same boat as you - and can't offer any advice! sorry! What about that old "what color is your parachute" book? I've never read it, but it seems like it's been around forever.
I used, and adored, "I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was: How to Discover What You Really Want and How to Get It" by Barbara Sher.
That book took me from my first career, software development, into my second, elementary school teaching. I left that one after writing a first draft of a novel on a whim and realizing I loved writing.
I recommend the Barbara Sher book... it really helps in expploring what's interesting to you and what matters.
The only other thing I can think of is a LOT of journaling... free-writing can really reveal a lot of what's hiding in you waiting to come out!
I actually prefer "Your Money or Your Life." Trying to figure out what your ultimate bliss is and make money at it is pretty difficult. It assumes that there is one type of work that you would love and that then magically, other people would want to pay you for it just because you love it. For example, being a doula is amazing work, it's important and fulfilling (I'm assuming) and the people you are helping probably really appreciate the service you are providing, but you still can't make good money at it. For me, garden coaching is great work, people love getting help with their gardens and I love giving it, but it's still not a good career. So instead I'm doing something that fits with my values, provides me with health insurance and a steady income. Sometimes I love teaching, but grading papers can't be described as "bliss." Finding my bliss seems like a lot of pressure to me.
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