3. Reading. Task 3. Turning Your Hobby into a Job

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TURNING YOUR HOBBY INTO A JOB

          Today, a huge number of coaches give lectures on how to turn a hobby into work. They gather crowds eager to replace the hateful office slavery with a creative extravaganza. The idea is simple: you like drawing – draw for money, and the riches will come soon enough. Allegedly, people get more pleasure from the business they are running and achieve brilliant results quickly. For example, the lives of Instagram bloggers seem joyful and their success – effortless. Yet, even though making a profession out of a hobby is tempting and fashionable today, it is not as simple as it may seem.

          First of all, it is believed that if you pick a job to your liking, you will not have to work a day in your life. As tempting as this sounds, this belief hardly corresponds to reality. These days, it is difficult to find a person who would diligently stick to one workplace for many years, with professionals moving easily from company to company in search of higher wages and more comfortable working conditions. Any inspiring and enjoyable job still involves effort, discipline, perseverance, and a lot of daily grinding work. Thus, if you hope to get only pleasure from work and avoid stress, then it is better to forsake these utopian fantasies right now.

          Secondly, any hobby is a continuous process. It still has goals and tasks but it deals more with following what the muse suggests. This process is akin to self-guided meditation. Regardless of the nature of the said hobby, it has a creative vibe. It is the time when a person immerses into a sort of meditative state. Creativity, as the matter stands, has little to do with restrictions and boundaries. However, office jobs give too little leeway for creativity. Employees cannot choose what to do. Instead, authorities give them tasks and no one is interested in muses and inspiration. Tasks must be completed on time, drawn up according to the technical assignment: no one will allow staff to do what they want exclusively. Even the easiest or the most pleasant job has pressure in its nature.

          Next, a hobby is what people fill their leisure time with. If someone decides to knit, write or draw for money, what are they planning to do in their free time? The brain still needs rest and switching off or switching attention to something else. Otherwise, we are talking about a textbook example of burnout or severe stress buildup. Of course, it is possible to substitute it with a new hobby like running or clay modelling. Nevertheless, there is a chance that this effort remains futile. A question for everyone who considers turning their hobby into a career: after a day of deadlines, will you have the time and desire to continue doing the same thing at home in your leisure time?

          Finally, a successful business is not a story about enjoyable pastimes. It is about the market. If you are still convinced that turning a hobby into a business is a good idea, here are the final cons. A successful and profitable business develops from the demand for a particular product or service. Even when business starts as a hobby, sooner or later it demands a solid business model, a good command of marketing skills, and constant evaluation of profitability. The modern market is constantly missing something. The skill to see the demand and grasp the right ideas guarantees temporary success. However, efficient capitalization of a hobby remains highly questionable.

          All in all, having both a steady job and leisure time activities unrelated to it opens more options for self-actualization. It also benefits psychological stability. Having troubles on the career front can for some time be outweighed by a nice big fish strike or applause from friends for your guitar solo. This helps preserve the feeling of success and healthy self-esteem.

(Adapted from 5 Reasons Not to Turn Your Hobby Into Your Daytime Job

by Amanda Taylor available at astronomyonline.org)

 

• an individual approach to task completion.
• precision in task completion.
• pressure-free task completion.
• original ways of task completion.