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What if we didn’t try to make a living from our passion?
Everybody wants to do what they love. But how do you do that without tainting it? How do you do what you love for a living without constantly worrying about the living part?
As soon as your livelihood depends on something, things get serious. Suddenly, it’s not about making a fun song, going crazy with the paint, or trying a new style. It’s about making money, and so it better work. Serious is not fun. Serious sucks out your energy. It draws you away from being creative.
So how can you do what you love without stressing about how to make a living from it? Well, here’s an obvious first step:
Diversify Your Income
Diversifying your income is a solid way to do what you love while attaching less importance to the revenues it brings in.
As I’m writing this, I have 10 sources of income, one of which I’m adding today: a virtual coworking space. Forest Coworking is a project I really care about, and thankfully, it doesn’t need to make me a ton of money. With the other projects I have, I could very well make nothing from it and still pay my bills.
This gives me the creative freedom to focus on improving the product as opposed to improving the revenues. Okay, what else can you do?
Delegate Your Tasks
When you’re too close to the matter, it’s sometimes hard to figure out the right decisions to make. That’s not a bad time to delegate to someone you trust. Of course, this doesn’t apply to everything you do.
In my writing, I try to delegate as much as needed on things that are not as creative, like editing and sharing on the internet. That way, I focus on what I like doing, without worrying much about its perfection and how well it will do.
In game development, I’m currently looking for a level designer and an outreach manager to take over for me. That way I can focus on the creative process without thinking about how it will make money.
Basically, whatever makes you think money, find a way to delegate that thinking to someone else not involved in your creative process. Creativity and making money are not friends.
Conclusion
Most of us can’t easily dissociate the creative process and making money, but when we do that, we actually make more money.
When you get too close to the matter, delegate to people you trust and figure out how you can have other sources of revenues. It’s so liberating not to have to worry about the dollar sign at the end of each task you do.
So, evaluate what you’re currently doing. Think about the reason(s) you’re doing it. Figure out how differently you would do it if it wasn’t for the money. Start working towards that.
You can do this!