Doing What You Love – for a Living
I run for no particular reason.
Of course, it’s to stay in shape, but mostly, it's for the time alone, enjoying nature and the rhythm of my feet. Same with skiing. I ski at a very high-level club, but I “run inside the balls” ‘cause I simply love to ski, but I don’t want to wrack up my ankles on those rock-hard little buggers. My ski mates harass me as they are all after their personal bests or national/world rankings, but it’s no matter to me.
I love just being on the water.
Business can be the same, and you can do what you do for sheer joy.
But of course, that’s easier said than done.
You have to make a living, or at least I’m assuming you do.
It takes time to get to where you can make that living while doing something you love, that “thing that gives you joy.”
And of course, most importantly, there are a few first steps.
Understanding your finances - how much you want/need to live how you want to live
Figuring out what your goals are personally and professionally.
I believe the key starting point to create the “thing” for people and businesses is defining their vision of success.
Whether it’s community recognition, gobs and gobs of net worth or net income, happy well paid employees, satisfying relationship experiences… figure it out and then strive to make it happen.
I am lucky. I am at a happy point in life where I have defined my vision of success, both in my business life and personally.
It is not to make gobs & gobs of money. I don’t; just ask my baffled accountant.
I have managed to line my personal finances up and streamline my expenses so that I have the good fortune to make a living at doing what I love, helping others achieve their defined success while having lots of spare time for my family, friends, hobbies, travel and volunteer activities.
My husband and I created a 5-year plan to both do what we love and live within our means. This included some paring down, some financial re-organizing & sacrifice, and measurable steps for our business models.
We are pretty much right where we want to be now - which is lovely - and I wish it upon others.
So now here I am, loving what I do for a living, which ironically is helping my clients’ love what they do for a living.
::The above part of this blog was originally written in 2019, once “you know what” hit I bumped up my work life but that’s about to be re-aligned::
I have a colleague, Ryan Lazanis, who created a few podcasts on setting about to create your “why” for your life and business. They are worth a listen.
“We run an accounting firm to give us more freedom, more flexibility and more money.
But...
Growing an accounting firm often leads us into the opposite direction.
More hours, more stress and less money than we'd like to be making with the effort we spend.”
Ryan discusses why firm owners often fall into this trap and what you can do to avoid it in his latest podcast episode.
Simply yours, Kellie :-}
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