The Wrong Problem
I’m a big fan of the whole “make a living doing what you love” thing. The problem is that I “love” many things and I “love” the IDEA of many more things. I’ve been trying so hard to solve the problem of finding out what I want to do that I’ve been overlooking the first problem I should be trying to solve. That problem, in a nutshell, is that I am not making enough money right now to build my passion consistently. It’s a little more complicated than that though, and I’ll describe it here:
A Struggling Freelancer
I’m having a difficult time making a consistent income doing freelance work because:
1. I haven’t specialized. I offer a variety of services and because of this I don’t give the impression to potential clients that I am an expert in or known for a specific thing they may be looking for. It’s difficult for me to build a strong portfolio around a specific type of work because from month to month I’m doing something completely different. For example, in April I had a commissioned hand lettering piece, in May I took on a logo design project, in June I took on a website design and today, I’m looking into possibly doing an audio book recording.
2. I am not adhering to a process. Fortunately, I have a process in place for taking on new clients, including several points where I can determine whether or not the client is actually a good fit. Unfortunately, I don’t always follow my own process. This can look like anything from taking on a client before they have completed content, to giving an unreasonable discount for the value I provide. When I or my client does not adhere to the process, everyone loses. I may still do a great job, the client may still be happy with what I make for them, but the perception of value and the passion always suffer.
3. I am a little desperate. This is the biggest problem by far. I have 5 young boys and bills that just keep coming. It’s difficult (seemingly impossible) for me to separate my financial needs from potential jobs, and as a result I’ve gotten into this “take whatever job you can get” mindset. This is probably at the root of the above two problems. If I wasn’t worried about the money I could afford to be more selective about the types of jobs I took rather than taking whatever happened to fall into my lap that month. I would also be more strict about adhering to the process, even if it meant potentially losing clients.
Simple Answers?
The answers to these problems are fairly simple: specialize, stick to the process and don’t be desperate. But that’s not very simple at all because it all comes back to the same question. How am I going to pay my bills?
A Dangerous Cycle
This is what I mean when I talk about trying to solve the wrong problem. When you are trying to make money from something or many things that you love before you’ve specialized, before you’ve built a strong portfolio, before you’ve established a solid process, before you’ve created demand for your services, you place yourself into a dangerous cycle of working on projects that you don’t love, for clients who don’t understand your value, while still barely, if at all, covering your costs.
Maybe this is just my experience, but I’d wager a guess that there are a good many out there who, to some degree, experience similar problems. The solution, the part that I’m working on now, is to find income from a source outside of your passion.
Setting Your Passion Free
How freeing would it be if you could devote some of your free time to discovering or experimenting with your passion, knowing that your livelihood didn’t depend on it’s financial success? How awesome would it be for you to be able to offer high quality pro-bono work for deserving clients who truly recognize your value and could refer you to their friends and colleagues? How great would it be to have the ability to say “no” to a potential client that wasn’t going to be a good fit for you anyway and not worry about the financial repercussions?
I believe it’s possible and that’s the experience I am looking for. The only way I’m going to find that experience is by protecting my journey to it with a source of income that doesn’t depend on my passion.
Get a Job
One of the sources that I’m going to talk about mostly today is a job that doesn’t put a strain on my passion. Here is what I’m looking for:
1. Something that pays the bills. It’s not worth having a job that takes time away from exploring your passion if it’s not at least meeting your basic financial needs.
2. Something that you don’t absolutely hate. It’s gotta be something that doesn’t drain you so much that you have no more energy to give to your passion. Sometimes the drain isn’t just the work itself… it can also be the people or the environment. That’s why it’s really important to ask questions up front about what you’re getting into. Talk to other employees. If an employer doesn’t want you to talk to their employees, maybe they’ve got something to hide.
3. Something that gives you enough free time to focus on your passion AND spend time with your family. There’s no getting around it. If you’re trying to protect your passion with a job, discover and build something on the side, and have meaningful quality time with your family, you’re going to have to sacrifice some things. It may be video games, or poker night, or netflix… that’s up to you. It’s not worth having a job to take care of your expenses if you’re not left with enough time to explore your passions and have time with the people you love.
This is not a simple thing. In the above three criteria, you’re asking for a lot. In fact, your first step might be getting any job in the first place, so you can take your time getting a job that meets the above 3 criteria before you can start exploring your passion. The job also doesn’t necessarily have to be a temporary thing. You may find a job you love enough that still leaves you room to explore your side passions that they can co-exist. I can see this being true especially for service related jobs (non-profit, church, environmental, etc.)
Your Passion is Worth It!
Other sources can be savings, investment income, or simply selling everything you own. Different income sources come with different levels of risk and deadlines. For my circumstances and risk tolerance, getting a job makes the most sense. You have to answer that question for yourself. Bottom line, don’t put the thing you love under the financial strain of meeting your costs before it is capable of doing that for you. Don’t let financial need become an oppressive cage for your creative passion. Instead, give yourself the time and financial margin to discover your passion, give your passion time to grow. A passion, allowed to mature and thrive, is capable of bringing more value to your life than you can imagine.
Hi and thank you so much for posting this and doing the podcast. I feel the same way and you never really gave it much thought as to this is how I have been sabotaging myself. I work as a guest teacher and enjoy being one for the most part but it doesn’t allow me to fully pay my bills and I keep telling myself that I need to make more money but am not sure how. I really want to be in business and some day hope to give my own how to succeed presentations. The problem is I am beating myself up because I literally am putting too much pressure on myself to succeed and when I don’t I feel depressed and like a complete failure. What a relief to know that I am not alone and that I can change this situation. I always thought that if I took a job I would get stuck and forget about mu dreams because I would not have enough time to pursue them.
I need to rethink things.
I was very touched by the last Sean Wes podcast. Normally I say I’m a little bee, going from flower to flower and I laughed a lot when you described it as being a dog that barks at the loudest noise. I too struggle very much with finding my passion and finding what I want to do. I have tried EVERYTHING and things just keep popping up, things that would be so nice to do, so nice to make money of. On top of that there is the desperation that you talk about. I don’t have kids, but I do have bills to pay.
I find that there are a lot of dangerous messages going around right now. Messages that mess with people’s emotional well-being. One I keep hearing among creatives is ” a 9 to 5 job would be the worst thing that could happen to me” which in reality if you’re struggling to make ends meet, could in fact save you a lot of misery.
Another message that I hear a lot is that “you don’t have to go to school” which is also silly. Some people need the structure of school to develop a work ethic, a workflow, critical thinking and all that..
There are a lot of people who tried the freelance/be your own boss road and it didn’t work. I know one guy who used to publish digital magazines. He disappeared from the internet at one point and now he’s working in a University which must be a really good job and with really good working conditions.
Anyway, I wanted to show appreciation to you honesty and your vulnerability at showing what many of us don’t want to confess: scatterdness.
I for example, have four websites, two twitter accounts.. I develop websites, I’m a bookseller, e-commerce manager, I illustrate, I watercolour and I want to badly have a side project/ business of my own, but there are so many things that call my attention it’s insane.
Anyway, like Sean says, you have to do stuff to know. So good luck with the audio book, you have a great asset in your voice.
Hey Ben,
Just wanted to give you some quick encouragement. I really appreciate your vulnerability with this post and I love the balance you bring to the SeanWes podcast. I was in a similar situation a few years ago. My wife and I left everything and moved to Austin looking for work. We don’t have kids, but we do have large student loans we are trying to kill. It has taken a couple years, but I am finally in a place where I have a great day job that affords me the ability to work on my passion without the burden of paying the bills. I’m still at the bottom of the hill watching people try and sprint it, but thanks to your insights I’m taking time to build my hill climbing apparatus properly. Because of this post, I’m doubly thankful for the past three incredibly difficult years that have helped form my drive and funnel my passion. So, I say these things to let you know you’re not alone in the trenches and the difficulties that may lie ahead will only make you better. Skilled sailors aren’t made by smooth seas, right?
Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!
I was thinking about all of the people who have been down and out and with literally $25 in their pocket and realized they just had to make their business dream work. I have heard many of stories like this and you know they are still succeeding today. I guess that works for many people but I honesty think I am the person who doesn’t do well under pressure. I did start looking for a job today but …I don;t know I guess it is all about faith. Any thoughts?
Hi I have never felt like a complete failure. We all have down moments but yes keep the faith and move on.
Thank you for sharing how you feel in your article. I also find myself desperate not having enough money to pay the bills, I have a kid and my wife doesn’t want to work right now. I want so badly to become a web developer but I have to struggle everyday with other kind of design jobs like doing editorial design, logos, advertising things I don’t love that much. I haven’t been able to develop a workflow because I constantly feel burned out, so tired to follow a guideline. I’m stressed all the time and finding ways to postpone work. I feel I need a day job but also I’m scared of finding a job that I hate even more than my current situation. It’s been really difficult since learning my passion is already hard.