Do you love how you earn your money? Is that even something you’ve ever considered as being a possibility? I talk to a lot of people who downright hate how they earn their money. They dread Monday’s, they count the clock til 5, they count down to retirement, they spend their time not working complaining about work.. it’s pretty all consuming when you really don’t like what you do for that much time. It also has a significant impact on our mental health. If you are spending 40 hours a week miserable and some of the rest of the time thinking about how miserable that working time is, you’re probably not the happy, sunny person you could be.
Now if that describes you, it may seem pretty impossible to jump to something you love. There’s a good chance there are some crappy beliefs there that need some work and those generally aren’t so easy to flip a switch on. It is possible to do in time though and that’s what I wanted to write about today.
A good first step in the shift is to think about all the people who are doing what they love and making great money. There seems to be this idea that we can’t make good money from fun things. Acknowledge that it is in fact possible. If other people can do it, so can you. There are people making fantastic money playing video games on youtube. There are super successful authors. I know it may sound odd to most, but I love doing taxes. There are all sorts of people doing what they love and making great money from it.
Once you’ve acknowledged the possibility, no matter how far off from current it may seem, next we can find some little steps to close the gap. The gap between how you earn now and how you’d like to, but also the gap between your believing that making money can be fun and life-giving instead of miserable and soul-sucking. Again, it is virtually impossible to jump from one end to the other in one step. But step by step is how it’s done.
I have worked a lot of jobs over the years and I want to say that while that used to be a really frowned upon idea, it has worked tremendously well for me and has never prevented me from getting a job that I wanted. If you aren’t happy where you are, it’s ok to just try something new. It’s easy to let the fear of the new keep us where we are, but you really don’t know what opportunities are out there til you start exploring them. You also don’t really know what you like and don’t like until you try some things.
It also helps to be clear about the parts of your current work that you do like, and the parts that aren’t what you want. Focusing on the good parts of where you are will help you feel better in the here and now. Instead of focusing on (and complaining, but not changing) the parts you don’t like, find the corresponding do want and put your focus there. Having a clear picture of what you do want in a workplace will help tremendously! Envision the type of people you want to work with, the money you want to make, the variety or consistency of work you do. With practiced focus you will also start to build your belief that what you want is possible. So many of us are afraid to want the things we want because we don’t fully believe it’s available, or maybe just not available for us. It is though. Believing that where you are is as good as you can do, when you are obviously not happy with it, is doing yourself a massive disservice and it is exactly the mindset that is keeping you from getting what you want. So want what you want and check out your options. You can find a job that checks all the boxes for you.
Note how I said checks the boxes for YOU. I can’t tell you how often I let people talk me into staying in jobs that I wasn’t happy with. They’d go on and on about the wage that I made or the pension it came with (note: the things that were important to them) but those things weren’t necessarily what I valued most. They also weren’t there day to day dealing with the people in the jobs or whatever reason there was for me wanting to leave. Just because someone else thinks you’d be crazy to leave where you are, doesn’t mean you are crazy for leaving where you are. It might be a dream job in their eyes, but is it in yours? You are the person working it, so I think your opinion on it should mean the most here.
Having a job that pays well but isn’t what you want is a tricky place. I hear this one a lot from people who work away or who have a spouse who works away. It’s easy to believe that you need that level of income and that more desirable jobs automatically come with lower salaries. It might be worth considering how valuable your current lifestyle is. I spent a lot of focused effort to bring my spending and debt to a place that I could afford to take the risks I wanted to take in going to self-employed. It is a full picture situation. If your desired job comes with a pay cut, practice the pay cut while in your current job. Even if you aren’t in a position to leave yet, you are building your faith in your ability to do with less and that is tremendous progress! There is big, big freedom that comes with being able to live on a small amount of money. Your happiness is important. If you are miserable in a high paying job, think about the tradeoff’s. The idea is to start working to bust the assumption that you need to continue to earn at that level to be ok. Work on the debt, savings and spending side of things for a while to ease that pressure to stay somewhere you don’t want to be.
Now if looking for a new job, or jumping to self employment seems like too big of a stretch, start small! Start with helping prove to yourself that you can make money in a fun way. I know a guy who does car detailing alongside his current job. He loves it and is great at it. I hate it and don’t want to do it, so he has customers. I have friends who find cleaning to be a relaxing, satisfying thing so they do some side work in that. Again, I do taxes and love it and there are lots of people who have no interest. It is easy and fun for me and I get paid. I had a girl pay me to give her financial advice and all I could think was how much I love telling people what to do with their money. I enjoyed it so much that I felt guilty taking her money. That is the exact societal assumption that making money needs to be hard and laborious that keeps us working in ways that make us miserable. It is really ludicrous when you think about it plainly. There are so many ways to earn money that there has to be a way that is fun to you. The concept that she valued my opinion enough to pay me for something I love to do changed my view on earning money completely. I hope you can prove to yourself that making money can be a fun thing too.
There is a concept that is rampant that says we have to ‘work’ to receive reward, but I want you to reframe that idea. Work doesn’t have to be hard. What I consider work and what other people call work are different. The things you are good at are valuable to other people who may not be good at it or like doing it. Think about the things that you love and you are good at that maybe others aren’t. Maybe you’re a mom to older kids and you miss the baby days. I can tell you there are moms to younger kids who would love to have experienced help. The options are limitless here! The whole idea is to make some money in a fun way. It doesn’t need to be your career. You don’t need to go to business school first. You don’t even need to do it a lot if you don’t want to. But I think it’s a really fun way to boost the budget and help shift to a more positive mindset about money and what you need to do to get it.
Now if you do want to change careers completely, you can also take that in small steps too. I want to be a writer, so I have joined some associations and have attended some workshops. I can build my skills in that while continuing to do what I do. I’m also picking away at the writing of the book with this blog and building an audience for this future book. I’m working to build a future income while I’m still doing the current income generation.
I also want to say that it is ok to do a bunch of things. There seems to be this notion that to be good at something it has to be your primary focus. I personally don’t believe that to be true. I earn money from doing taxes. I earn money from taking pictures for people. I have seasons that are more of one than the other and I really like it being like that. I’m also working on writing and on selling photography prints. When I did taxes all day it lost some of it’s appeal. I tried doing photography solely and I sucked the fun right out of that too. It’s ok to mix it up. This is especially important if you want to make money from creative endeavors. I’ve heard of so many people who wound up hating their passion because they made it their sole source of income. It’s ok to keep a mix in the bag. It’s ok to keep your passion projects as part time if you want.
I’ve said a lot in this one! haha. Essentially I want you to think about what assumptions you have around earning money and hopefully to take a little step to bust some of your own myths. Getting to work in a way that feels less like misery will have such massive ripple effects on your life. I can’t even begin to explain the ways that this has improved my life and it’s only going up from here.
Lots of love
Dawn
Tax Wise 