When you were growing up, you were probably told that you could do anything you wanted to in life. Of course, you also may remember that, as soon as you finally hit the age at which you were required to actually decide what profession you would pursue, the story changed. Now, you were expected to be practical, setting aside your dreams in favor of finding a job that would pay the bills.
It’s frustrating to spend your entire life believing that you can follow your bliss, only to have the rug pulled out from under you when your decisions finally mean something.
Thankfully, there are ways in which you can still chase your dreams, while also operating as a functional citizen. These methods may not entirely resemble the plans you had for yourself when you were a kid, but they will allow you to work towards your goals while simultaneously managing your expectations.
Select An Industry, Not A Job
As a child, thinking of what you might want to be when you grew up, you were probably quite specific about the role you hoped to play in the world someday. You wanted to be a rock star, or a film director, or an astronaut. You knew exactly what job you wanted to have.
As an adult, you may come to realize that such dreams ae not realistic. However, you can still work in a field about which you are passionate, even if you don’t do so in the manner you had originally hoped. By focusing on an overall industry that interests you – entertainment, law, the medical field – you can open yourself up to new opportunities. The low-level administrative work you end up doing might not directly align with your original plan, but you can at least enjoy the fact that you’re doing work that means something to you.
And, if you do get a gig in your chosen field, there’s always the chance that you’ll work your way up in the world, finally reaching that dream job after a few years.
Make Daily Commitments
You’re probably not the only person you know who had dreams of doing something big, important, and noteworthy in life. Many of your friends may have also harbored dreams of making it in a profound way.
You’ve probably also noticed that, as soon as those very same friends landed well-paying jobs, they more-or-less forgot about their dreams. They were content to simply collect their paycheck, even if they didn’t feel tremendously passionate about their profession.
Granted, it is true: To be an adult, you need to have a job, you need to make money, and you can’t wait around for the perfect career to fall into your lap. That said, you can still work towards finding that perfect career, even if your current job consumes most of your daily schedule.
Stephen King didn’t become successful because of natural talent. He became successful because, even when working as a teacher, even when working in an industrial laundry, even when raising children at an age where most of us have just grasped how to cook something other than Ramen, he set aside time each and every day to write. Regardless of how busy his day was, he made it a point to reach the commitments he made to himself. The hard work eventually paid off.
And that’s what you may have to do. If you’re serious about living a dream, you can’t (and shouldn’t) expect that someday you will stumble across your big break. No, you need to choose a certain amount of time literally every single day to take steps in the direction of your dream. Your progress may be slow, it may be incremental, but it will be better than nothing.
Look For New Twists On Old Professions
As children, we aspired to work in jobs that we were aware of, jobs that existed at the time. We couldn’t anticipate the fact that there would be new careers we could take an interest in. Technology develops, societal values develop, and as such, the job market changes. If you’re willing to change with it, you can find that the dream of doing what you love may not be so far-fetched after all.
Say, for example, you want to be a film director, but you have no way of breaking into Hollywood. You could focus all your energy on what is essentially – at this point in your life, anyway – an unrealistic pursuit, or you could take your talents and create a webseries. Sure, the budget will be low, the audience will be minimal, and you won’t collect any Oscars, but you can use this method to not only turn a profit following your passion, but also get your name out there. Rather than feeling sorry for yourself because you couldn’t make it big as the next Spielberg, you can take notice of a new, innovative way to do what you love.
Depending on your dream, it may be slightly more difficult for you to find new ways of chasing it, but if you do allow yourself to broaden your horizons, you may find that the options are not as limited as you originally believed.
Manage Your Financial Expectations
Let’s be honest: Those of us who feel passionately about what we want to do for a living also tend to assume that, if we ever do find success in our chosen field, we’ll also, somehow, be rich. The dream job will also bring with it a dream lifestyle.
Unfortunately, that’s probably not going to happen for the vast majority of us, even if we do manage to realize our professional ambitions. And, by setting your sights that high, you’re simply setting yourself up for failure. You’re serving to kill your own enthusiasm, and that’s not going to help you get what you want out of life.
You have to accept the fact that, in this world, if you’re at all able to make a living doing something you care about, you’ve pretty much got it made. You may not own a yacht, you may not live in a mansion, but you can get up every single day and recognize that, while others are trudging off to jobs they hate, you’re enjoying yourself. If you need millions of dollars on top of that in order to feel fulfilled, you should question just how much you truly care about this dream job of yours.
