Brave Quitting

Be a Creative or Be More Practical?

One of life’s great dilemmas is whether to pursue your creative outlet as a career or to make it a sideline in favor of a career with better prospects of earning a decent, stable living.

Of course, that decision is an individual matter but perhaps you’ll gain some clarity from the internal debate that I posted on PsychologyToday.com.

A Workover: A Communications Specialist Wants Even More Creativity

A caller to my show wants a career more creative than being in communications for a nonprofit but, at 35, is reluctant to go back to school. 

The transcript of our exchange is my PsychologyToday.com article today.

A Workover: An Ad Saleman Wants to Change to a Creative Career

A caller to my show whose most recent job was selling newspaper ads but thinks of himself as A Creative and wants to make a living at that. I used our exchange as my PsychologyToday.com article today.

Counsel for the Creative: Practical advice for those wanting an artistic career.

Many of my clients would like an artistic career. My PsychologyToday.com article today offers thoughts on how to maximize your chances of making one work.

Do What You Love? Risky

My PsychologyToday.com article today is; Do What You Love? Risky.  There may be a more likely path to contentment.

Should You Follow Your Passion as Your Career?

This is the fifth in a series of five posts, each of which distills one of the presentations I made at the Commonwealth Club this month.

Many of us have deliberated whether to do our passion as our career or as a hobby. Most often, it's some creative activity: writing, performing, creating visual art, fashion but also could be environmentalism, journalism, etc.

The commonality across all of those is that they are popular passions and so supply and demand means that only a small percentage of wannabes will earn enough money doing their passion to even pay back their student loans, let alone to make a sustainable income.

But one size doesn't fit all. Should you pursue your passion as your main career? Or should you relegate it to hobby or sideline status? Perhaps these questions will help you gain some clarity:

1. If you pursued your passion as a sideline or hobby instead of as your main career, you'd be:

a) dissatisfied (30 points) 

b) somewhat satisfied (12 points)  

c) satisfied (6 points)  

d) very satisfied (0 points)  

2. If you pursued something other than your passion as your main career, what would you likely earn per year?

a) Less than $20,000 (15 points)

b) $20,000-50,000  10 points) 

c) $50,000-$75,000  (6 points) 

d) $75,000-$100,000 (3 points) 

e) More than $100,000  (0 points)

3. In the past year, how much have you earned from doing that thing you're passionate about:

a) More than $75,000 (15 points) 

b) $50-75,000  (12 points)

c) $25,000-50,000 (8 points) 

d) $5,000-25,000 (4 points)  

e) less than $5,000 (0 points)

4) Which best describes the feedback you've received from people with the power to pay you to do your passion:

a) A person(s) would definitely pay you a good-enough annual amount to do what you're passionate about (25 points)

b) A person(s) would likely pay you a good-enough annual amount to do what you're passionate about (15 points)

c) A person(s) would possibly pay you a good-enough annual amount to do what you're passionate about (8 points)

d) No one with the power to hire you has said they might pay you a good-enough annual amount to do what you're passionate about (0 points)

5. What percentage of people stably earn at least a working-class annual income doing your passion? For example,  database programming would get 10 points, fiction writing would get 0 points.

a) More than 75% (15 points) 

b) 50-75% (12 points

c) 25-50% (6 points) 

d) 5-25% (3 points)

e) less than 5% (0 points)

SCORING: Add up your points  The closer your score to 100, the more likely you'd be wise to pursue your passion as your main career.