What Do You Want to Do With Your Life?

What do you want to do with your life? That's a question that almost everyone asks. I do not think you should even bother asking that question.

"I do not know what I want to do in life, all I know is that it's not like that."

That was the feeling a friend brought me. She is in her mid-twenties, smart, savvy and working hard. But she still has no jobs that are not much above the minimum wage. Every year, she tells me, she applies for universities, but never does. Why? Because she can not answer that question.

Passion arises

I'm worried that many people are falling into the same trap. The trap of believing that they have to make big decisions in life before they can start doing something. The trap that you must be born with passion. And the lie of being able to connect your interests with a profession is simple.

When people ask me what I will do in five or ten years, I usually tell them that I am an entrepreneur. "Oh, what's your business?" I have reason to believe that this internet business could be it. Between revenue and freelance work, I expect about ten thousand dollars this year. Concentrated efforts over the next four or five years could definitely make this a liveable income.

But I usually do not say that. Because it's not about it. Honestly, I have no idea where I will be in a decade. My track record shows that my passions have developed significantly in recent years.

Ben Casnocha, Comcate's 19-year-old CEO, shows in his book, My Start Up Life, how his passion did not begin with a brief glimpse:

"It did not start with a dream, it did not start in a garage, it did not even begin with an innovative epiphany, perhaps the most overplayed memories of entrepreneurs." He goes on to tell the story of Jerry Kaplan's epiphany moment in Kaplan's book "Start Up." Ben adds, "I wish my revelation was so original, it was not and most were not." [Emphasis added]

When Ben tells his story as a teenage CEO, it becomes clear that his passion has evolved. There were interests in entrepreneurship and discrimination. But out of these interests, he made smaller steps, each of which built a passion. I do not think his journey ever started with what he wanted to do with his life.

Replace decision with curiosity

Instead of making concrete decisions about a career path, I think you should be curious. Be curious about how the world works. Consider your own interests and find little ways to make passion in something. Even if you still can not find a way to make money with it.

The bridge from passion to money-making can not be hastily beaten. Interests are often discarded because they can not immediately be turned into a source of revenue. And that's why they are not as important as the work they do.

Blogging is a good example. I know many bloggers who want to become professional. They want to turn the interest they have into a passionate source of income. But blogging is not easy. Even the fastest successes I've seen lasted over a year, until the author claimed blogging was more than a hobby. And that was because of literary talent, luck and an incredible amount of work.

The Best Afast Company In The World.

Patience is a necessary ingredient to develop a passion. In addition, you must be open to other options.

Income interest is not a straight path

80% of new companies fail in the first five years. More interestingly, of the 20% who succeeded, most did not do so as they expected.

Prior to setting up his hugely popular website, Steve Pavlina felt that he would achieve his largest sales of products and workshops. Barely five years later, he does everything from advertising and partner sales. An earnings outlook that he downplayed when creating his business plan.

Likewise, I do not believe that the passions of most people follow a straight path. Scott Adams graduated with a degree in economics and a position at a bank and is now the successful cartoonist who created Dilbert.

Seven steps to develop a passion ... and make it work

First step - Collect sparks of curiosity

Do not you have a passionate inferno that drives your actions? Do not worry. Most people I know do not know. And if you're under thirty, you're probably in the vast majority.

The first step is simply to invest your energy in whims. These little interesting sparks of which you do not know enough to make them a passion. Ben Casnocha calls this seeking contingency. For me it was a process of finding my intuition and making small investments in potentially interesting things.

This means reading different books, doing different activities and meeting different people. Broad associations give many chances to encounter a passion that can work.

Second step: fan the flames of interest

After exposing yourself to a lot of randomness, you must cultivate the achievements. Build on the little spark of interest that comes through your life. If you read a book on physics and like the subject, you are taking a physics course. If you have basic programming skills, try a small software project.

Step Three: Cut out distractions

Cultivating whims and discovering new passions takes time. One of the reasons I put so much emphasis on productivity is that I could not explore these options without them.

If your interests are genuine and worth exploring, it should not be too difficult to eliminate the non-essentials. Distractions such as television, excessive internet usage and video games require only a little conditioning to release them. The hard part is redistributing time that you do not believe is yours.

Step Four: Living Minimal

If you already have a job for which you have no passion, you only work as much as you need to keep going. Valid passions take time to develop income generating abilities.

I do not suggest to become a hungry artist and make big debts. However, avoid expanding your life to fit an ever-increasing paycheck if you do not live your passion. Otherwise, you'll just catch a life that's comfortable but otherwise dead.

Leo Babauta, author of ZenHabits, is a good example. With six children, freelance work and another job to help his family, he found ways to cut spending and focus on his passion. His website has quickly become incredibly popular, and I would not be surprised if it became a stable source of income for him in a few years. Live minimal and avoid living in a pleasant but unsatisfactory life.

Fifth step: Make a passion that creates value

If you have a skill that creates social value, you can earn money with just about any medium. The monetization of a passion requires skill, as any entrepreneur can tell you, but without the provision of a legitimate value, this is impossible.

You must transform your evolving passions into an ability that can satisfy human needs. Some passions are easy to translate. An interest in computers could enable you to become a software designer. Others are more difficult. A passion for poetry can be harder to satisfy a particular human need.

Step 6: Find a way to monetize this value

Once you have the ability to create social value, you need to turn this into a repeatable process to earn income. This could be done in the form of a job. As a programmer, you could be hired by Google. Or it could cause you to become a freelancer or entrepreneur.

The monetization of values ​​is not easy. It requires you to learn to market, sell, and find ways to reconcile human needs. Whether you intend to work in a job or own a business does not matter. You are the CEO of your life, so you need to know how to connect your passions to serving other people.

Step Seven: Return to Step One

The gradual description of this process is misleading. This implies that there is a goal. There is no goal. The process of following whims, cultivating passions, transforming them into valuable abilities, and finally earning money from them, is lifelong. I have some passions that are in steps one and two. This blog is in the middle of step six. In ten years, maybe I've been through them all with a different passion.

Not all your passions will or can end the sixth step. But as stubborn as the myth you need to decide what to do with your life is the myth you can only have with a passion. I have come to a point where cultivating passions has meant that I have too many options. Too many possible paths that could lead to beautiful and fulfilling careers. Do not be obsessed with a failed attempt.

What do you want to do with your life?

Your life does not have to go through a predictable storyline. It does not have to start with a dream, follow the hard work and end up in a beautiful four bedroom home. Instead, it can turn and travel. You do not have to know the final answer, you just have to go to the next step.