Welcome to Day 4 of Five Days to Discovering
Your Passion! Yesterday we uncovered themes and patterns related to passion.
Today we’ll share avenues for exploration and ways passions can morph into careers.
Reflection:
A developing passion often has small
beginnings. A great start is to set time aside for
exploratory trips outside your normal routines.
Hit up the public library - not so much to
borrow books (although that’s fine) but to browse. Observe which topics jump
out at you and what subjects you feel drawn to.
Browse a directory of online classes or
community college classes. Be adventurous and take a class you’ve always
wondered about. You might love it or hate it. Remember, crossing things off
that you don’t like can help narrow the field.
If you have some level of expertise in an
area, volunteer to write a guest blog post or an article for a local paper.
Volunteer to teach what you know to others. Get out of your comfort zone.
When you’re pondering turning an area of
passion into an income, there are practical ways to strengthen your
confidence that your passion is indeed career worthy:
●
Interview a person or two employed
in your area of interest. Find out the path that took them there. Ask what the
biggest challenges have been.
●
Ask to intern with or “shadow”
someone who’s currently working in that field. Offer to do it without pay and
ask tons of questions.
●
Start by adding what you’re
passionate about as a side-hustle to your full-time job, and then slowly grow
it into a business.
Action:
Resources online are virtually boundless, and
many are free. Sites like Coursera, Lifehacker, Khan Academy, Instructables,
LinkedIn, and many others provide education on almost any topic you can think
of.
Google “free online learning resources” and spend a few minutes scrolling through the results. Look for topics
that pique your interest and select one or more. If you’ve already determined
areas of interest, look for those topics specifically.
Either way, is there a free course you can
start this week? It’s FREE, so if you get into one and lose interest, just move
on to another.
Alternatively, see what free or low-cost
courses are offered through continuing education in your community.
That’s it for today!
Tomorrow we’ll finish up with ideas about
making room in your life for passion.
