Opportunity versus Career


I am stuck at a cross road – need to choose one out of the two options I was presented with. It’s very hard for me. I know what I love, what I aspire to be – have a long term vision, mission of realizing my dream but have no solid structure  or foundation for what appears to only “pipe-dream”. And that voice in my head that keeps urging me to gird up and start putting the puzzle together gets louder and louder but has no roadmap for me to use.

I heard that it’s okay to build castles in the air – as long you know that one day you will start working on the foundation (soon enough before the castles collapses). Question is – exactly how realistic is this version? Can I count on passion alone?

Second on my options is choosing something that I’ve a wealth of experience in. An option where my strengths, capabilities and skills are clearly detailed. I have 100% surety that I can deliver no matter what. But I’m only doing that because my passion is not forth coming, opportunities comes in drips and drapes and go stale over a month. See, this is the one that keeps the bills paid up.

Basically, I’m torn between what I know I can do (blindfolded) and what I love to do. A tag of war between BILLS and PASSION.

Confused – not sure which to choose. Looking for a time and a place where these two could co-exist, a new phenomenon – maybe? Well; I have received expert advice on how to tackle this overwhelming phenomenon.

  1. Put both your passion and job that pays down on paper: what do we mean by that? Break down constitutes of your passion on one side and then your job on the other side.
  2. Start with your dreams, your passion. Then work back from there determining a plan for how to make the dreams reality. Like the main elements of project management; start with the end result in mind because that lays the groundwork for recognizing opportunities and taking advantage of them.
  3. Figure out where you want to go then determine what needs to happen to place and sustain you in that position.
  4. Bearing in mind that first priority is to keep your income flowing – In your extra time, entertain opportunities. There is a lot of trial and error but that is how you learn. Successful people have endured innumerable failures on the path to achieving their success. Failures, missteps, etc., are all part of experiential learning. Use your belief in yourself to stretch beyond what you think is possible
  5. Why could you not pursue two paths with the idea of them merging at some point in the future? One path pays the bill while the other path releases the passion. Eventually, the passion pays the bills. That’s the goal!!!

That is the trick here – Always come up with new ideas to move you further along the path to your passion and slowly migrating your passion into the job that pays.

How’s that for a plan? Try it and let me know, am hoping that it works for you much as it is working for me. 😉

Related Posts

How social media may affect your job search

These days social media correlates highly with job search. Global social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, inevitably form a certain image of a person. Even though employers prefer candidates that can be…