How To Live A Passionate Life and Change

How To Live A Passionate Life and Change Your Job
Into Your Dream Career


You're on your way to work. And, while it's not necessarily a job you hate, you know that it's not your passion nor is it what you feel you should be doing. You've thought about having your own business but you rationalize that you can't be fully committed to it because you don't have the funding and you need your insurance and a host of other reasons have been used. So, you do a little freelance work on the side, sometimes turning down business because you feel that you can't spend enough time on it to do the job right. But in your mind you tell yourself that things are going to turn around and you can change your part-time freelance work to full time freelance work. However, in those truthful moments with yourself, you realize that you're not doing anything different to make those wishful musings a reality.

If you've gone through that or are going through it now, I know how it is. Being stuck in a job going nowhere and saying that you're doing it until “something breaks” was my mantra for years. Now, if you're honest with yourself, you'll admit that one of the root causes is fear; a fear of the unknown, a fear of commitment and fear of exposure, a fear of risk and the list could go on. I was there.

Then one day, while thinking about my upcoming test for my next rank in karate class, something that had been getting drilled into us came to mind, hitting me in the face like a well placed roundhouse kick. “Attack your kata. Make every block and punch count. Even when you're defending, make it an attack...” That was it. Because I was thinking of life and especially my job as just an exercise, I wasn't attacking it as if my life depended on it. I wasn't living in the moment, but in the improbable future-a future that I wasn't doing anything to really change into what I wanted.

I was sitting back passively waiting for things to change. I was going through the motions, as if life and the pursuit of the career that I wanted was just an exercise without real meaning and substance. Once the realization hit me; that all of life is to be lived with passion and commitment, I started taking control of my life. Life isn't an exercise, it's the real deal, it's more than a tournament where you can possibly win a trophy. Life is the action of taking what you've learned into the streets with the goal of survival-survival for yourself and those you care about. That's when I changed my outlook on my business. I started asking myself, why am I turning down work that I like to do for work that I don't really want to do? So,  I started trying to work myself out of my job and into my career. I wasn't in a position to just leave, so I had to take things slow and steady. A book that I read had it right. I was entitled “Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow”.

So, I made a decision to:
Rearrange my time to spend more time on doing the work that I was passionate about
Finish any and all old work that I had been putting off “because of my job”
Actively look for new work that would help me work out of my job
And find people who were interested in helping me and then ask for their help

Basically, I had to attack my life and my career in the same way and with the same attitude and passion that I was to attack my kata because my life depended on it. To quote Masatoshi Nakayama,"Karate-do is attained one step at a time, and so is life. Just train everyday and try your best, and the truth will come to you." Attack your dream and your life with passion because your life depends on it.