Lifehack - Maybe one of your goals involves traveling the world or maybe you’re looking for enough time to help with a cause you feel passionate about. Either way, though, you likely have a prior commitment to an employer — or at least to paying rent and eating on a regular basis. Most of us are not in a position to quit working and spend all our time on those activities that we’d like to make a priority. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t add our own priorities to our work — it’s possible to incorporate our own interests into our work even if we haven’t landed our dream jobs.
Talk About Your Passions
Your interests may have absolutely nothing to do with your job: most corporate jobs don’t take your passion for the arts or your after-work involvement in sports into account. But that doesn’t mean that limiting your discussion of such topics will pay off in the end. If you want to balance your work with your passions, it’s worth making sure your work actually knows that you have a few passions.
I went to school with a friend who took an IT job immediately after graduation, despite being far more interested in making films. Just talking about his passion opened up some opportunities for him: he’s gotten involved in national competitions for films on his employer’s behalf, gotten access to company property for sets and props for his own projects and has been able to add some interesting responsibilities to his resume that actually involve making films. At the very least, he’s turned his job into something he enjoys — but he also has moved a little closer to working in a job that focuses on his passion, rather than incorporates it.
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