The best way to turn your passion into a profession is to make it a hobby

When your passion is your hobby you take the pressure off which makes it more funWho says you have to make your passion your business?! If you can do then great, and if not then so what! There is a lot more to life than work, there are many areas in life that you can incorporate your passion into, most important of them is a hobby… why?To start with when you are playing and having fun then you learn better, when you learn, you slowly get better at something. When you get better at something, you become more professional at it and when you become more professional at it, you can turn it into a profession. Keep in mind you are never going to be passionate at something that you are not good atAlso when you make your passion your hobby vs. a business you take off the pressure to perform which makes the journey more enjoyable.So go ahead - enjoy this episode and then share it around and spread the love.Till next episode…Live PassionatelyMoustafa HamwiPassionpreneur & Chief Energy OfficerAKA The Passion GuyTranscriptHello everyone and welcome back to Passion Sundays- the best way to end a week to start another.It’s been said that a life of passion and doing which you love is truly worth living. The question is, what if you cannot do what you love for a living. Is that a problem? Should you quit your job or should you just be miserable for the rest of your life? Guess what, none of the above! Who says the you have to make your passion your business? You know what, if you can do it, phenomenal! If you cannot, so what? Life is not just about work. There are so many other aspects in your life you can incorporate your passion into, so, chill bill! Take it easy. Enjoy your life.You see life is not just about work. We got stuck in that treadmill mentality where we are just working, working, working, working. But, if you actually have your passion as a hobby on the side, you will not feel so drained of work. Because when you finish work, you are going find something that replenishes you. Something that is truly ‘me time’ outside work or even outside family that is truly about you and what your soul is desiring. Now, the beauty about this is multiple dimensions. One of them is the fact that when you are playing and having fun, you learn better. This is what I learn from my dear coach and mentor Tony Buzan, the inventor of Mind Mapping. He says the best way to learn is to actually have fun.Now, when you learn, you slowly get better at something. When you get better at something, you become more professional at it and when you become more professional at it, you can turn it into a profession. And then, your work will become the love of your life which is your hobby. That takes time. It could take you anywhere from three to five years to master something and guess what, anyway, if you are going start it as a business today, it might take you three to five years before you hit the success that you want. So why put the pressure on yourself from now to make it a business? The down side of also making it a business is that there is lot of pressure on you to perform. That pressure comes in many areas because your reputation is on the line, everybody is watching you. If your business collapses, you are going to collapse on the inside and more importantly, when you turned it into a business, you are going to have to make money. And suddenly you will be faced with situations where you going to have to compromise on the money versus the true passion and realistically when it’s a job, the money is going to have to come first. So don’t put pressure on yourself and just enjoy that journey.Now one more thing to remember on your journey of passion is that you really want to be good at something to stay passionate at it. You are never going to be passionate at something that you are not good at. Imagine if you really wanted to sing and you got on stage and you sounded bad every time you got on stage and you got booed off stage, how would you feel about it? Unless you get really good at what you are doing, until you are so impressed with yourself and everybody around you is impressed with you, then you will really start enjoying it. Now that takes a lot of worth and it’s better to do that as a hobby while you slowly build that up to a profession.I’ll give you an example from my own journey. Although I became a speaker and a coach fulltime a couple of years ago, I have actually been on this journey for over ten years. And in those ten years, I have been psychotic and I mean psychotic about reading, about learning, about studying, about taking courses. My holidays are taking courses, my free time is about reading and learning, I am a course junky. And even since I was a teenager, I was all about learning and developing.Now that took time before I could turn it into a profession and you know what? Best of all is, I’ve enjoyed the whole journey. Now one more thing about the joy is that you actually get competitive advantage and I will give you an example. Look at children when they are playing, do you have to motivate them to play? Of course not! They just want to play because they are having fun and they keep playing and their energy is there. Now give them some homework. They just don’t want to move, you need to push them, motivate them, punish them. So, think of you and your competitor as two children. You are the child that’s playing and having fun and your competition is doing homework. Please tell me who’s going to have more energy, who’s going to have more stamina, who’s going to have more creativity and who’s going to finish the race and even if you both finish the race who’s going to look better at the end of that race? And this is what the journey of passion is exactly about. Having fun. So, as I wrap up, I would really recommend you go find your passion and make it into a hobby and have fun, most importantly.What do you think? I would really love to hear your opinion. Please do share your comments with our passion community on the blog below and if you find this valuable, please do share it with somebody and spread the love. And if you would like to stay engaged and get more tips, tools, techniques and exclusive interviews, then go to Moustafa.com and sign up for Passion Sundays. And until next episode, live passionately!