I read a business book a few years ago. It ended up in the “this is ok” pile, but I wasn’t amazed by it. The subtitle of the book always stuck with me though. It went something like this: a guide for women to make money doing what they love. The theme throughout the book was creating the life you love by making money doing what you love. What a promise. I don’t think there is anyone who wants to work in a dead-end job the rest of their lives doing something they hate. This does not end up in the What do You Want to be When You Grow Up essays. But as we get older we realize that creating the life you love doesn’t always pay the bills. Does it mean you are a failure?
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Let’s Talk Money
Money. Sometimes we treat this as such an ugly word. It can be difficult to talk about with clients. We are shy about being honest about it…unless you’re making bank, then there is more of an openness, sometimes. But making money is a necessity. No, it shouldn’t rule your existence, but let’s be honest, we need money to live. So working and making the bills is something you have to do. It can’t be escaped.
You need to make money to support your kids, to buy that homeschool curriculum, to grow your business, and all those things that you need to do. The bills need to be paid, so you can’t avoid it. So what do you do if your passion doesn’t pay the bills?
Does Creating the Life I Love, Mean I have to Love My Work?
In a previous post, I tried to debunk the cultural idea of chasing your dreams as too narrow, and embracing motherhood as a dream worthy of pursuit. Honestly, I don’t feel like these posts do the topic justice. I expanded on them in my book that I am working on. Through this discovery process, I am realizing that the more deeply a topic is felt the harder it is to write. So as I am struggling to put these deep feelings into words, so I want revisit the idea of chasing your dreams or passion for just a moment. The idea of creating the life you love is rooted in these same cultural ideas of passion and chasing your dreams. Frankly, they are just too narrow. Let’s talk about it.
My oldest son sits as his desk, working away on his high school work. Suddenly, he stops and turns to me. “Is this true. If I find what I love, I will never work a day in my life?” I cringed when he asked me. Let me be straightforward with you, I really hate this statement. It sounds nice. This statement is a promise we all want fulfilled in our lives. It is safe to say we all dread working a job that we hate. Yes, I’ve worked jobs I hated, and it is not something I recommend. We envision ourselves being stuck in the everyday grind with no hope of getting out. Like a really bad scene from a 1950s movie.
The Problem with This Idea
The problem with these ideas of passion is that we silo it into meaning one thing—love the job that you do. You have to be passionate about your work. The job you work should come with an euphoric high of passion.
Passion is the foundation of all your motivation. If you don’t have it, then you won’t follow through in the hard times. You will give up if you aren’t sufficiently motivated by passion for what you do. Or so they say.
I admit these sound nice. The problem is they just aren’t true. It sets a standard that is unreachable for many people. It is possible to like what you do without being passionate about it. You may even just like the people or work environment that you are in, without actually being passionate about your job. If we are honest with ourselves, if people really enjoy the work environment and the people they work with there is a lot about the job that we will endure. You may be passionate about a specific job, but if the environment is toxic you will hate your job.
My passion and my driving force is to be the best mom to my kids. That is the number one dream I am chasing. My career and how I make money is what gives me the resources I need to be chasing my dream.
Jodie the Mom
Creating the Life You Love—Mom Confession
All right my fellow momtrepreneurs and homeschool moms, it is confession time. Here it goes. I am not always passionate about being a homeschool mom and momtrepreneur. There I said it, and it is true. Both of these things are really hard. There are days when I feel like a total failure at both. Feeling like you are never succeeding or your failing your kids in their education is kind of a big deal.
Does this mean I am a failure then? Have I not created the life I love? Since, I am not making money doing what I love, then how can I create the life I love? This is so confusing. I am supposed to be chasing my dreams and following my passion, in order to be happy. I must be doing everything wrong.
Mom, take a deep breath with me, now breathe it out. You aren’t doing anything wrong, and you are not a failure. Yes, I think of vacations we can take if I didn’t need to buy curriculum. I ponder the carefree days I could have if all the kids were in school. Yes, I think of the time I could spend creating content, recording podcasts, and posting YouTube shows if I didn’t have clients who loved me so much.
The day-to-day realities of being a work from home and homeschool mom can steal the passion out of the most passionate mom. That’s why I create the Momtrepeneur Life Coffee Chats because we need to know that what we are feeling and realities we face are normal. That there are other moms out there dealing with the same stuff.
So what do we do?
Is it Possible to Create the Life You Love?
I know I will probably be thrown out as an outcast homeschooler for saying this, but here it goes anyway. You can still homeschool your kids without being passionate about homeschooling. *gulp* Did your mind just get blown? It is true. You know what, you can also be a momtrepreneur or mom entrepreneur without being in the depths of passion about it too.
Are you still with me? This next one is a doozey. I hope you are sitting down. Here it goes. You can be successful at both—homeschool mom and work from home mom—without being passionate about it. How can this be? Everything we just talked about says that in order to be happy and creating the life you love it requires passion and loving what you do. There is another way.
Be passionate about doing the right thing and doing it with excellence. Sometimes we just need to do a job or homeschool our kids because it is the right thing to do. You may not be passionate about it, but you can be passionate about it being the right thing to do for your family. And this will be creating the life you love.
The people you are surrounded by—your kids—are your passion. You don’t need to find something else to be passionate about in order to create the life you love. It is ok for your driving force and your passion to be your tiny humans. No, it won’t always be rainbows and unicorns, but they are your motivation. They are your motivation to work and school on your own terms. It is your reason for ditching the 9–5 (or at least the office), being your own boss, and enjoying your life.
Unfortunately, raising your kids is a passion that doesn’t pay the bills, but it is what drives you to find those things that will give you the freedom to create the life you love. The motivation to work doesn’t need to be the work itself. Your motivation can just be creating the life you love….whatever that looks like.
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