From job to joy: how I found passion and purpose in my career
It only took me a few years to realize I wasn’t super passionate about my career.
Even though I had a few internships in the HR field in college, I wouldn’t say market pricing or completing salary surveys got my motor running. It wasn’t too long before I started questioning, “is this it?” I wondered if I’d have to spend the next 40 years wondering if this is all life was.
Work to earn a paycheck.
Go home and watch tv.
Rinse and repeat.
I actually read a few books on career advice. I briefly read and did a few exercises from the classic career guide, What Color Is Your Parachute? These books touched on the idea of finding something you were passionate about and making that your career.
Ever heard of the saying, “do what you love, the money will follow?”
Or perhaps the “if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life” mantra?
The problem for me was, I didn’t feel like I was passionate about anything.
I’d become so disconnected from the things that lit me up as a child that I didn’t know where to turn for other career options.
I was desperate to find something that made me feel a sense of joy and pride at work. Anything other than feeling numb, or even depressed. After all, I was living and working in the same city I went to college in. All my friends left for Chicago or other cities and my family was 1.5 hours away. I was lonely and wanted to feel more connected with people.
So I considered other “reasonable paths” I could take. Perhaps I could get a masters degree in HR. Or I could study for the LSAT and go to law school. I could be like my parents and pursue the IT field. Another option was to pursue consulting.
Ultimately, I didn’t do any of those things.
I stayed in the HR field for another 8 years.
But along the way, I found my passion.
Finding my passion
I was listening to a podcast by one of my favorite authors and podcasters, James Altucher.
James was one of the first people I remember who blogged about tragic and dark experiences. Like making millions, losing it all, making millions again, then going broke again. He seemed a bit unbalanced, but that’s what made him so fascinating.
On one of his shows, he was interviewing the legendary author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books, Jack Canfield.
James asked Jack a question around how someone could find what they were passionate about in life.
Immediately, my ears perked up. Here I was trying to find my passion, and I had 2 experts I admired willing to share their advice. Jack’s answer to James’ question would transform my life.
“Go back to when you were a kid and had no worries and cares in the world. What did you like to do for fun?”
Granted, those weren’t Jack’s exact words. But they were awfully close to what he said.
James took Jack’s important advice a step further. He challenged listeners to make a list of 10 things they loved from their childhood. As soon as I finished listening to the episode, that’s what I did.
At the very top of my list?
Writing.
In my childhood, I made up tv show scripts, wrote a story about a kid with a developmental disability becoming a major league baseball pitcher, and was a reporter and editor for my school newspaper.
But once I got to college and studied business, I only wrote if I had to for a class project.
Though writing wouldn’t cure my loneliness, it gave me a creative spark that my day job couldn’t provide.
Come November 2015, I started writing my first novel, One Last Kill, and ended up writing three more thriller books over the coming years.
Making my passion my career
As much as I loved writing novels, I knew it wouldn’t pay the bills.
Sure, it would’ve been nice to build a massive fortune with words the way Stephen King or J.K. Rowling did. But most authors are in my boat, where we’re lucky to make 4-figures in book sales.
Around the time I was wrapping up edits on my first few novels, I enrolled in an online copywriting course.
I’d heard of copywriting before but really didn’t know what copywriters did.
Eventually, I realized that copywriters were the people that wrote the words for advertisements. This included sales pages, brochures, and website banners, among other things.
As I went through the course, I felt a rush of excitement. This was the type of creative work I was looking for.
A job that would allow me to utilize my skill and passion for writing.
Sure, it didn’t pay the most money, but that wasn’t a huge concern of mine. I was already vastly underpaid in my role as a Compensation Manager at a hyper-growth healthcare company in Chicago, and I figured I wouldn’t have to take too big of a pay cut.
I worked with some local graphic designers to create spec ads, and I was ready to build my portfolio.
But as I built momentum in this new career opportunity, I was faced with resistance: I needed to finish one goal of publishing my novels before I could take copywriting seriously.
By the time I finally launched my first novel and novella in February 2019, my HR career faced a new challenge. Sick and tired of having my expertise questioned by executives, I realized I couldn’t take it anymore and found a new HR job.
At first, things were amazing.
I had a great boss, fun coworkers, and an amazing opportunity to build equitable and competitive compensation packages for a progressive company. Things were pretty great until around the 1 year mark where I got promoted, which was when things started falling apart at the company.
Long story short, my pattern of people-pleasing, taking on too much work, not setting boundaries, and still being disconnected from my true self had me pining to work professionally as a writer again.
It took another year and a half and a manager change before I realized enough was enough.
I knew I wanted to do something different, but wasn’t sure if that path was still in copywriting or something more practical like HR consulting.
I saved up over 8 months of salary and finally left the HR world in October 2021. Here I was, no longer desperate for money or status and finally with the freedom and space to choose what I truly wanted for my career.
The road of freelance writing, HR consulting, and copywriting were calling.
One day, when I was reading yet another copywriting article, I stumbled across UX (User Experience) Writing.
Unlike copywriting, UX copy isn’t designed to sell something to someone, but is there to help a customer figure out how to do something or solve a problem they have on an app or website. I did a 15 day UX Writing Challenge to see if I even liked the idea of UX Writing.
I had so much fun with the daily prompts and designing clearer solutions for users that I enrolled in a few free courses and eventually a UX Writing bootcamp.
Several months into the program, I was hooked and well underway to doing some UX Writing projects and building my portfolio. Along the way, I wrote about my UX Writing lessons learned on Medium and LinkedIn.
This is how I connected with the hiring manager that took a chance on me for what was to be a 6-month contract role at eBay that I’ve now had for almost 2 years.
Time flies when you’re having fun and are passionate about what you do at work!
A new career calling
Where 2022 was about moving into a career I was passionate about, 2023 was a year of tremendous personal growth.
It all started with a decision to go to therapy.
I’d just been ghosted by a guy I started seeing. I thought our budding relationship had potential. But obviously I was wrong.
This was just one of many ways in which I’d experienced an anxious attachment style, and I finally agreed to try therapy to address this.
Therapy, combined with rediscovering Buddhist teachings, propelled me down my current path.
I gained so much knowledge and insight about myself and finally had ways to work with my anxious thoughts, live in the present moment, and reduce my suffering.
Working with my therapist made me consider whether I wanted to enter a helping profession myself someday.
I’d long enjoyed volunteering with others and found working with friends and mentees 1:1 to help them with their career challenges incredibly rewarding. Also, the most enjoyable part of my HR role was working with leaders 1:1 to help them with leadership, compensation, and performance issues.
For several months, I considered the pros and cons of becoming a coach by taking a training program or going back to school in the future to become a therapist.
The decision became clearer when I began working with a fitness coach in September so I could finally build a body I was proud of. Through my work with him, I saw the benefits of a supportive coaching relationship with an expert who could help me achieve the results I wanted.
Not only did I get tremendous results, but I realized I wanted to do this type of work (in a different capacity) with my own clients.
Come December, I’d found a coach training program that aligned with my values and have been training in it ever since.
As I’ve coached others in this program, I’ve seen how amazing it is to help others have insights that help them move forward toward their goals. It’s a joy to watch them become their true self.
Moving forward with purpose
Becoming a coach aligns with my purpose of reducing suffering and increasing happiness.
This higher level purpose is something I discovered when diving back into Buddhist teachings as part of my self-growth. By helping burnt-out corporate overachievers look inward toward what they are truly passionate about or what brings them purpose, I help them create their dream careers.
Sometimes that involves reimagining what’s possible in their current role. Other times, it means integrating one’s hobbies more into their personal life before discovering how to turn that into a business.
No matter what path my clients take, helping them on their road to a more fulfilling and less frustrating work life fills me with tremendous pride.
Without question, this is the most purposeful work I’ve done.
Along the way, I still get to fuel my passion by writing articles and posts like these that help many more people.
I’ve finally found a career that not only fuels this passion but one that lets me embody a sense of purpose each day.
If you’re looking to create your own career filled with passion or purpose, book a call. I’d love to help you.
