Finding a job is one thing — and an important thing, to be sure. But unless we spend the time and energy to figure out what we really want to be doing, we’re going to land right back where we are now: frustrated, restless, lost, and unhappy. This is where we talk about how we can uncover the things we most want to do with our lives. It’s also where I test out tools so you don’t have to. Click here for past posts.
Your hobbies are useful to thinking about your calling
When you’re thinking about what you’re called to do – or at least what you want to do next – don’t forget to look at your hobbies, all of those things you do in your spare time, all of those things that make you relaxed and happy and creative and accomplished.
Before you start hollering at me that that’s impractical, just hear me out.
What your hobbies get you
First of all, you already do your hobbies without getting paid to do them. You run or do ceramics or paint model horses or knit or climb boulders or invent small machines that will fish the socks out from underneath the couch. By definition, a hobby is something you’re passionate about to some extent.
Second, because you’re engaged in this hobby, you’ve assimilated to one degree or another all of the specialized language, knowledge, and insiderness of that field. You know and understand things that people who do not participate do not know and understand.
Both of these things – passion and insider knowledge – are valuable.
It’s probably not what you think
I’m not suggesting that you can start making a career tomorrow out of climbing boulders. Or knitting sweaters. Or drinking beer. Or whatever form your hobby currently takes. While that may actually be possible, it’s probably not the simplest way in.
But every hobby, every passion, has a whole host of companies, organizations, activities, and stuff that make that hobby possible. Someone has to design and manufacture the equipment. Someone has to distribute it. Someone has to manufacture the actual supplies the hobbyists and experts need. Someone has to make it available for you, the hobbyist, to access.
Someone has to be the expert teacher. Someone has to organize the tours. Someone has to coordinate getting that yarn into the hands of the knitters who want it. Someone has to convince bars to stock this new brand of beer.
What I am suggesting is that your passion and your knowledge are valuable in all of those spaces, because it’s less you have to learn. And if you combine your passion and your knowledge of your hobby with the other skills you undoubtedly have – organizing people or things, public speaking, teaching, designing curricula, coaching people one on one, etc. – then you’ve got an incredibly useful set of things to talk about in an actual application.
You do not have to turn your hobby into anything
This isn’t to say that your hobby is automatically the way to go. You may want to keep your hobby a hobby. You might be the kind of person who likes to dip lightly into dozens of hobbies and never dive deeply into any. That is okay.
When I suggest you look at your hobbies, what I’m really asking you to do is to look around at the rest of your life for clues, ideas, and directions for where you might go next. It’s easy to get so caught in the academic mindset that we don’t actually look beyond our academic work. But you have a whole, valuable life that’s full of all kinds of things you’ve already done and could do. Just look.
If you’re struggling to figure out what you’re called to do, or even what you might want to do next, Jo VanEvery and I teach a telecourse on choosing your career consciously. It covers how to find things you might want to do, how to pay attention to your life for clues, and how to look at what you actually bring to the table. If you’d like to find out when it’s running again, click here to sign up for our advanced notice list.
