The Courage To Work For Wellbeing And Live A Life You Love!
The Courage To Work For Wellbeing And Live A Life You Love!
You may remember hearing recently a statistic thrown around that ‘Millennials will change careers 15 times during their lifetime? Don’t worry if not, turns out it was some pretty false information anyway. Firstly the quote should have said ‘jobs’ rather than ‘careers’, secondly it implies that Millennials are either less secure in their jobs, or just more willing to change their life paths on a whim. There is actually very little evidence to suggest millennials are changing careers any more than GenX’ers before them. In fact some statistics show that ‘churn’ (or – people changing careers) has actually gone down over the last 10 years.
My Working Life
I’ve not had the most traditional working life, back in 2010, a few months before I graduated from university I made myself a basic wedding photography website. Back then there really weren’t anywhere near as many people entering the industry and pretty quickly I (well ‘we’ – my wife had joined the business by this point) had enough bookings to call wedding photography my ‘job’. My first job was actually a paper round, soon after I also started working for my dad landscape gardening. I started lifeguarding and swim teaching at 16 and carried on doing a bit of swim teaching and landscape gardening while I was at Uni. I’ve always had a bit of a problem with authority, so self-employment seemed like the only option for me long term and the way our business took off made that initial decision to be full time self employed a fairly simple one.
Sliding Doors
For so many people their careers are just a means to pay the bills, often borne of circumstance. Jobs that started off as stop gaps or backup plans soon morph into a routine. Advancements in pay further cement the job in its new title of ‘career’ and the stakes start to rise. Sooner or later other commitments come along, whether it’s kids, a mortgage or just getting used to a better standard of living. Before too long the idea of changing careers becomes a daunting, life changing prospect, with the added peril of actually having something to lose. I often wonder how the last 8 years would have gone if those three months between March and May 2010 had been different. My website was pretty terrible (for some reason I felt that brown was the right background colour for the whole site…) and my only advertising was paid per click ads. At the same time I had started applying for pretty much any job I could find as the impending threat of ‘real life’ was looming ever larger on the horizon after 3 years of care free studenting. I was in a serious relationship at the time and would go on to marry the wonderful @vtravels just a couple of years later. Suffice to say the idea of marriage was already on my mind and had I landed a well paying job I would most likely have looked into a mortgage as soon as I could. It wouldn’t have taken a lot for things to have gone differently, I didn’t have much faith in my talent as a photographer and I had been brought up to believe that a job and a mortgage were two of the most important things in life. Fortunately for me things went how they did, I found a job I loved that I was lucky enough to do with the woman I love and that would, in time, take me all over the world with my photos on the pages of worldwide magazines.
The 7 Year Itch
I can’t say I’m familiar with the feeling when it comes to relationships, not with people anyway. My relationship with my career definitely suffered from the 7 year itch though. I’d always been driven by competition, measuring myself against others for internal validation. During the 7 years prior we had worked relentlessly to win awards and gain recognition in the industry. There we were, in an airport in Romania having just spoken at a conference out there. In the months prior we had travelled to speak in America, nipped to Rome for an Engagement shoot and flown out to Bordeaux for a wedding in a beautiful Chateaux. Most of that was off the back of a year in which we had won most of the awards we had dreamed about winning and been included in one of our industries most prestigious ‘best wedding photographer’ type lists. We were tired out but incredibly proud of what we’d achieved. Proud, but not particularly fulfilled What followed was 12 months of questioning and self-doubting, trying to figure out what we really wanted. We knew our passion for photography had dwindled and that the stress of everything our careers now involved was getting a bit too much for us. Sometimes it seemed that the only option if we wanted to prioritise our own happiness was to change career altogether.
A Step Back
If you start to feel yourself losing the passion for a career you once loved the best advice I could give anyone would be to take a step back. It’s like marriage counselling for your career, it’s a pretty important relationship in your life after all! Take a moment to remind yourself what you loved about your career in the first place rather than just focussing on what’s pushed you to this point. We knew we loved taking photos, ok – that had dwindled a little over time – but we did and DO love photography. We also LOVE the way of life that self-employment allows us. Taking a step back gave us the chance to think about what was dragging down our love for our careers. It came down to two things. Firstly, time away from home. We love home, Yorkshire is an incredible place and we have [too many] ridiculously cute pets. Our work had us travelling, not just up and down the country – regularly working in London which meant leaving the dog at my sisters, heading down to a hotel nearby, then arriving back in Leeds at around 4-5AM some 36 hours later. Destination weddings had been something we had both craved but the reality was rather different from the dream of a few days ‘free holiday’ that so many imagine working abroad to be. Step one then was to limit the amount of time we spent working away from home, targeting the North of England and only taking on a very select number of shoots that would involve overnight stays.
The Flip Side
For many people taking a step back doesn’t result in the realisation that changes, no matter how big or small, can be made to restore passion for their career. It’s a daunting realisation, or it can be. But there’s no reason it HAS to be. It could just be the best thing that’s happened to you! First up it doesn’t have to mean you quit work tomorrow! Just making the decision to make a big change (or changes!) can feel like a huge weight has been lifted, that alone can make your current career all the more enjoyable just for knowing it’s soon going to be coming to an end! The key thing is just to take steps towards your new perfect career. That may mean exploring hobbies and thinking creatively about where your passions now lie, it may mean just being open to new opportunities and unexpected potential careers. The key thing is to remember that you don’t have to know right away what you’re going to do. Isn’t the fun really in the journey anyway? That being the case your journey will be all the more interesting if you let your passion take you to places you haven’t even dreamed of yet.
Build It And They Will Come
Maybe I’m a fantasist, but I have great faith that when you’re fully open to change it tends to happen for you. Sometimes we plan out our paths in our heads and the universe delivers, other times we hope for an end result and the universe fills in the gaps for us. If you let it, it’s amazing how things tend to work themselves out, especially with a little added courage and a determination to live a life you love!
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Very well said! A lot of people live their entire life working at a job they hate. It's kind of a sad existence. But I'm glad you're content with where you're at! Upvoted and resteemed.
Thanks dude! It is, but it's so easy to see how people get trapped that way!
Beautiful creativity you have! subscribed to your blog
Hi @skiesandsports
Excellent article. I subscribed to your blog. I will follow your news.
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Good luck to you!
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