This has been a question for quite some time now. Mostly in all motivational videos about entrepreneurship, I have almost always heard the speaker say this – “Quit your job, follow your passion with extreme focus“. I always asked myself if this was even practical?
I believe you should never quit your job for your passion. As much as it seems very cool to say, follow your passion with all your heart and quit your job, in real life, it is a very impractical thing to say. Your passion doesn’t pay for your bills, your job does. Your passion does not put food in your belly, your job does. So, why would you do that? But, does that mean you should forget about your dreams and the ideas that you want to pursue?
NO. NEVER. Then what exactly should you do instead?
I analyzed a lot of things surrounding my life and my job, and have come to the following conclusions:
a) Your job is normally for 8-10 hours. Keeping aside a few hours for your sleep and leisure, invest the rest into doing something which you think you want to pursue. Do that for 90 days consistently and see if that works out. Why 90 days? Because if you treat yourself as a company, you at least need a quarter to analyze and understand if your ideas are working or not?
b) Learn a skill set from a good platform. When you know you have achieved a good command of that skill set join a freelance platform and try selling that skill set. Try that for 90 days consistently and see if that works.
c) If you work for a company, and you want to do something else that you currently are doing, see if your company offers that service and has a team for that job. Network with and shadow the key members of that team. Find out in real-time if you would truly want to pursue that job, full-time.
d) If you truly admire someone professionally, send an email to that person or talk to him/her and see if they want to mentor you. If not, you can always go to ConfiBuddy for a mentor. A good mentor can often show you the path and guide you towards the right direction in your personal and professional life.
If you keep trying this 90-day strategy, in a year you will get 4 options (90 days each) to choose from on which you have truly worked hard, to know what you truly want to do for the next couple of years in your life.
Always remember, you do not want to stop the most important cash flow (your job) which makes things possible in your life today, for an uncertain future with no cash flows.
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Arnab Pandey 