Forget About Doing what You Love

You know the old career advice to “do what you love”? A lovely sentiment, no? There’s even a book devoted to the topic. But in reality, unless you are one of the fortunate few who happens to love say, litigation or rocket science or brain surgery, you may be out of luck. At least that was what I found in my career.

I think a better approach would be: Maximize your earnings potential in your early years. Then you can do what you love later.

Most of us have multiple talents. Maybe some of them are not so profitable, but surely at least one or two of them are. Explore your own potential and determine what you can do with your talents that will maximize your earnings. You don’t have to love it - you just have be to good at it and like it enough to get by. A big paycheck will help compensate for the lost love.

Consider this: what if you insist on doing what you love, and find that you can’t earn enough to make ends meet. Do you think you will still love or feel passionate about what you are doing? As romantic as the notion is, sometimes we can’t just follow our heart when it comes to the matter of providing for ourselves and our families. And it would be a terrible shame to end up resenting something we had been passionate about, just because it could not support us.

Years ago I worked with a man who was a top-notch software engineer, making a really good salary. He told me that his first love was music, and that he had spent years pursuing his passion, making a living playing music. He had even spent a few years working on a cruise ship as a musician. It all sounded wonderful and romantic to me, but he did not hesitate to tell me that he had been poor during those years. He had since gotten married and bought a house, and his first priority now was making a good living by working at a more lucrative career. He was really good at both writing software and playing music, and seemed to enjoy both. When I asked him if he ever wished he could return to working at what he really loved, he said flatly that he had no desire to return to poverty.

I think that at some level this encounter influenced me and made me realize that we may sometimes need to adjust our career dreams to accommodate reality. This isn’t to say that you should work at something you don’t enjoy at all - I can’t see how that would work out well for anyone. What I am suggesting, though, is that you evaluate your talents, skills, and interests, and try to identify the best balance of doing something that will make you happy (enough) while providing you with sufficient income to enable you to pursue the other things you love, either now or later in life.

I was fortunate to be able to fall into a career that utilized my skills while I was doing something I enjoyed. No, I didn’t love it and often times there was something I would have rather been doing, but I did get satisfaction from my work and was fairly good at it. Many times I was frustrated or impatient to get on to what I really wanted. Subconsciously I felt I should have been doing something I felt more passionate about, but I had to make a living, too. So I kept at it while planning for the future. Now that I’ve been able to step away from the full-time career, I have the opportunity to pursue what I really love with less concern for earnings potential.

Every now and then someone who knew of my frustration in my career (especially in the later years) asks if I wish I had taken in a different path. And honestly, my answer is no, because I can’t think of anything I could have done that would have provided me with a better balance of solid income and at least some enjoyment. After all, the income from that career did enable me to retire early, which is something I was very passionate about!

Other Articles you might enjoy:

• Defining Moments Part 1 - Making the Decision to Retire Early
• One Year of Retirement: A Look Back
• Health Insurance in Early Retirement: A Real Eye Opener
• 5 Ways the Internet Saves Me Money

Tags: career, planning