This post is part of a 30 days series called the 30 steps program to financial independence. You can check the list of other posts here.
When I couldn’t stand my job anymore, I started thinking hard about what I should be doing next. I needed to find a job that was both something I loved and something that would fit into the lifestyle of freedom and travel that I wanted to live.
So I made a list of passions. It included traveling, teaching, cooking, and other activities. I also made a list of jobs related to my passions. Travel writer, cook, chef, foreign language teacher, tutor… And studied the pros and cons of every trade.
Because the cook would spend hours standing, usually for a very low wage, I discarded it. And along with it most cooking related jobs. I started tutoring as a side job, and a friend of mine offered to buy my travel articles for his website. Within a few weeks, I had two or three students, and was writing five small articles a day. The income was not huge, still, I was really, really happy to go to work!
I wrote yesterday how I was happy to work for McD for a year too, for different reasons, it was just the perfect student job at the time. Your dream job may evolve with age, starting a family or other personal reason. Whatever it is at the time, there is surely a way to go for it. You can go back to med school at 40 on a scholarship, you can bartend for the next 10 years if you thoroughly enjoy it. Start as a side job, bartend at night, as a hobby. As people request your services more and more, you will earn more money, until that day you can leave your day job. The same applies to any job.
There is no risk, no what ifs. A friend of mine works in a bank. When she got pregnant, she started using her time off work to bake amazing cakes for friends and family. She posted the pictures on facebook and people started to ask her to bake more. She now has many customers and bakes at night since she is back to work. She loves it so much I could bet she will leave her banking job soon to bake full time.
20 years ago, that would be frowned upon. Leaving a well paying job to start a manual trade? That is crazy. Today, we are all about following our passion. And guess what? After a few years, I am sure my friend will make more with her cake business than with her day job.