Is Passion Necessary in a Home Business?
We frequently hear phrases like, “Follow your passion” or “Do what you love and money will follow”, but is it really true? Do you need passion to run a home business?
When I started writing to earn money, I wasn’t passionate. Heck, I just wanted to pay the bills and not leave my baby with a sitter. I couldn’t have cared less what I did, as long as it made money. I did love to write, but fiction had always been my area of interest, so writing 10-20 articles on automotive models did nothing to excite me.
Later, I did do some projects that I enjoyed, but the passion wasn’t really there. Mostly because I was writing on topics that meant nothing to me. I did them, but there was no real interest there. I got my $5 an article (back then I didn’t realize I was worth more!) and went on my merry way.
When I did write on something that interested me, like parenting or food, then suddenly it wasn’t a chore. I was interested in what I was doing. I wrote better, faster and longer articles that the client loved. While my work was always good, these were excellent. And that’s when I realized that passion really does have something to do with how well you do in business.
You don’t NEED passion. You can run a business just fine without it. But you aren’t going to enjoy it. It will be a chore that you have to drag yourself through every day and that means that chances are you won’t work as hard as you might in something you love.
Does this mean you should ONLY do what you adore? No. Sometimes that isn’t possible. Maybe your dream business has a startup cost of $100,000, which you can’t afford. Maybe your favorite hobby has 0 potential as a business. The fact of the matter is that many of us don’t do what we are passionate about and that’s ok.
It’s ok, because you can work toward your passion. If you need $100,000 to start that restaurant you’ve always wanted . . . well, start something smaller for now until you can get there. If you’re desperate to buy milk and pay the rent this month, then it’s worth writing because you’re good at it and people will pay you, even if you don’t enjoy it. We all have to do things that we don’t like, but as long as you aren’t settling for that and accepting that your life is going to be boring and dull, it’s just fine to work on something you dislike for a while.
What are your thoughts on this? Do you need passion?
Dear Genesis,
I have spent years trying to figure out how to bring money into my family while still being at home with my kids, and I had always assumed that I needed to have a passion. Then, like you, I realized that what I really needed was money.
You are very right–it isn’t absolutely necessary to LOVE what you do for your business. But on the other hand, working from home can be so challenging, so unnerving, and definitely so alone, that without passion, it can be hard to keep going.
I would say that some type of passion is necessary just to make it through the rough spots. Sometimes I have done things that I’m not passionate about, but I have always had passion to succeed at providing for my family.
And besides getting me through the rough spots, it is my passion that brings clients and customers to me. Today I negotiated for 2 different consulting jobs, and I could tell that my passion helped sell me. If I had been lackluster, I would never have captured their interest. This is true both in person and in the writing I do.
Yes, we all need to pay the bills. But I believe that something has to light your fire or the work you do will lack vitality.
Thank you for your provocative blog post.
Julia
I think you touched on a vital point here, Julia . . . passion for providing for your family. That counts, too! I agree, for the long haul, you need something you enjoy, but sometimes we have to do something not so great to start off.
Hi, I am new here and this is my first post.
I have been a wahm for 5 years now. I started an internet store from ground zero so I could stay home with my disabled son and still provide for our family. My store has been up for 5 years and it just passed $2,000,000 in sales this last year.
I believe all wahms have a strong passion for their children that no one can really describe. I believe that passion is what lights us up in the first place to do something about staying home with are children.
Next, I think we then use our creative minds to try to find something we are passionate about, after all that would be ideal. I just happen to be looking for furniture for my 2 and 3 year old at the time, so that is what I got into. I used my computer background, which was what I loved to do, and coupled it with what I was interested in at the time, and wolla it happened.
Things were up and down for a while, I wasn’t sure if I could do it, but now I know that my family and I are truly blessed with this business and I am able to have a steady income to contribute to our family.
My kids are now 7 and 8 and they love the fact that I can come to their schools and have lunch or stop and read the class a story. My son is getting all the help he needs from therapy sessions and doctors outside of the school, which I would not have the time to do while working a full time job.
All in all, I would have to say, that your passion is your kids and what ever you decide to do from home I think is really truly closer to your passion than you think. If you do find something that you are passionate about to make a living from home, then that is the icing on the cake.
That is my 2 cents, thanks for the subject,
Stacey
I love that way of looking at it, Stacey! Thanks for sharing.