How to Make Money From Your Passion: Six Proven Ways That Will Work

By Anubhav Srivastava ( Register for his Workshop – Build Super Confidence For Super Success!)

Everyone wants to know the answer to the question “How to make money from your passion?” But how many of us are actually able to do so? Not many for sure. How often have you been told that you should really try something as a career because you seem to be really good at it or just because you love it. Well here is the deal, unless you can make money from it, you are pursuing a hobby not a career.

We are all talented and really good at something or the other. It is often something we love to do as well, but then why is it that so few people are actually able to make a decent living doing what they love? Why is it that it seems that most of the people who are trying to make money with their passion eventually give up? The reason that  it can really be hard trying to make money from it. Nevertheless a lot of people do take this courageous path. In this article you will learn the strategies and tips that will maximize your chances of being able to make money while following  your passion.

 

My first tip if you want to make money from your passion is to only pursue it if you are really good at it.

Let’s say I love Soccer but I am not not talented at it. Without that basic talent or aptitude, is it possible to make any significant money from what you love? I don’t think so. Every year millions dream of becoming soccer stars, most of them are going to fail not because they don’t work hard but it is because no matter how hard they work, they just don’t have aptitude for it.

A smaller group will go on to play for minor clubs and only a tiny elite group will make millions from playing professional soccer. It making a living doing what you love is important to you, the first thing you have to do is to make a realistic assessment of yourself. Are you good enough at it to be able to make a decent living from it? If the answer is no, you should give up and something else. A “decent living” also depends upon definition. For some, just getting by is a decent living, for others, a decent living is being no less than a millionaire. So be clear about what kind of lifestyle you want and then realistically assess whether the aptitude you possess for the field you love is good enough to lead to that kind of living somewhere within a stipulated period of time. If it is not, you are better off doing something else that you love but have a much higher chance to succeed at.

 

The second crucial strategy to make money from your passion is to only follow your passion if you are able to give value to people

What is value? Value is can be tangible or intangible. It can be practical or psychological. But generally speaking, anything that solves a problem that people have in their lives is giving value. Now value doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good or bad for that particular person, after all Fast Food Chains and Tobacco Companies are solving the problems of people (need for psychological relief) whilst harming them! Value just means solving a problem they have as quickly as possible and in a manner that people think is better than most of your competitors in the market.

If you love cooking for yourself, you are providing no value people so no one really cares. But if you can provide tasty meals for people who like the kind of food you prepare, right there you have solved a problem for people and are providing value.

If you write for self satisfaction only not caring about whether or not a sizeable audience is interested in reading what you write, you are on the wrong track. Your writing has to resonate with at least a group of people who will then eventually become your fans and buy your books or other products.

Let’s take a look at some examples of people following their passion providing no value

A musician who only makes music that he likes but no one else does
An inventor determined to invent a product that gives absolutely no value to people, not even a small group.
A businessman trying to sell something that is already obsolete.

Let’s take a look at examples of people providing value

A person in show business who truly entertains his or her audience
A video editor who edits videos exactly how the customer wants and provides great value
A meditation instructor who helps his or her clients relax mentally or teaches them the techniques to do so.
A chef who gives customers exactly the kind of food they crave for or makes new recipes of interest to them.

If you are doing something similar to the former group, you are on a path to failure, change while you still can!

Thirdly, in order to make money with your passion, you need to determine whether your monetization (or money making) strategy is right for your audience.

It doesn’t matter how much value you provide to your audience, if you are not able to make money from it, you are doing volunteer work or charity, you are not pursuing a career. Charity has its own great merits but you need to at least be able to feed yourself and you family, right?

If you are unable to find a way to make decent money from your audience it means one of two things. 1) You are not providing enough value. 2) You are targeting the wrong audience

It is hard to monetize that audience if they are unable to see value in what you provide, or if they don’t have the money in the first place or one that has the money but is only interested in freebies nevertheless.

In this case you have to either convince them of the value that you provide and help them become convinced that the money they are paying will truly help solve their problem in an effective way and is every bit worth the price. f you an truly solve their problem then over time you will be able to charge money from them UNLESS

1) They don’t have the money.

If you are going to try and sell high priced products to groups who don’t have the money, you are gonna fail. You can’t sell Mercedes or Lamborghinis to Students, unless they get a lot of pocket money from their multi-millionaire parents. Either sell something they can afford or sell to people who can actually afford it!

2) They don’t want to spend the money. Now you are also going to encounter a second possibility, it is possible that your target audience or customers might have the money but may not be willing to spend the money. I mean it is always possible that the same audience might be willing to spend loads on other things but only expect freebies from you. Like probably just extract whatever they can from you, clap and move on. In this case you will have to either build up a sizeable audience so that you can make money from other sources, for example advertisements, patrons or sponsors.

The fourth tip to making money from your passion is to be a Jack of All trades, and master of one.

What does this mean? It means that while you need to be an absolute master at the core service you will be providing to people, you cannot just ignore everything else.

If you are an artist, you cannot just be an artist, you also need to be the salesman for your work, you may also need to know the basic technical work to be able to showcase your work online and on social media.  You will also need to learn how to manage our own finances so that someone else doesn’t misguide you or mismanage your hard earned money. You need to learn a bit of everything associated with your trade even if you are not an absolute expert at it. This way, at least you will have some idea of how to do the basic things yourself. In other words you have to be very productive in all areas. Even if you hire an expert for each associated task, that basic knowledge will ensure that nobody else overcharges you or makes a fool out of you.

That being said you still need to know how to get the job done by someone else if you are not that good at it. Especially if you can make more money if you just hired someone else to do it. It is important to surround yourself with the right team, even if it is not a permanent team, but task specific. Even if you are a sportsman in a solo sport that doesn’t involve teammates on the field, you still need to have the right team (coach, nutritionist etc) that helps you become the best at your sport that you can be. If you are a business owner, after understanding the basics of the tasks you are not great at, you should hire someone else to be able to do those things, especially if your time focusing on the core task produces much more money.

 

The fifth thing to remember in order to make money from your passion is that you should never depend on a single source of income.

When you depend on a single source of income you are at great risk. The product that you sell like hotcakes today might become obsolete in an year. Money from the sport you are great at will stop rolling in once you cross a certain age or sustain a career ending injury. The platform at which you have built up an online audience (Facebook, Youtube) might go away in an instant if they decide to change their policies or shut you out for whatever reason. What are you going to do then?

Diversification is incredibly important. While it is great if you are making money from a single largest source right now, it is unwise to rely on it forever. Always have a contingency plan in place if you want to avoid regrets. Always imagine what is the worse that could happen and what would I do if that worst thing happens? This is not negative thinking. This is being prepared for the worst case scenario. God forbid if it actually ever happens, if you are prepared you will not be completely shattered, but if you are not you could lose your only means of livelihood.

So always keep thinking about newer ways in which you can reach your audience, newer ways in which you can have a more permanent contact with them, newer ways to monetize your passion if your primary strategy fails or if your service/product becomes obsolete. Start working on it right now even when it doesn’t seem like you need to do it. You will be thankful you did!

The final thing to remember if you want to learn how to make money following your passion is that there will be a lot of heartbreak, despair and even ridicule. And It is also going to take a lot of time.

Remember that unless you get extremely lucky, nothing happens overnight. Even most so called overnight success stories took many years in the making. When you first start out you are going to be up against established players ho have already paid their dues. There is going to be a lot of sacrifice and hardship and despair. If you taken care of all the points mentioned above in the article and are following a sensible strategy than eventually you should be able to overcome that despair but even that will take a lot of time.

It will also take a lot of sacrifice. To achieve anything there is something you need to give up today. To be fit tomorrow, you need to sweat today. To pass the exams tomorrow, you need to slog today and so on. If you are not ready to push out of your comfort zone your progress is going to be quite minimal. You are going to face days when you are going to question whether it’s even worth the struggle. You are going to wonder whether you should have taken up a nice stable job like everyone else. But guess what, if you are truly great at what you do and have an indomitable will to face the odds, eventually it is all going to be worth it.

You are also going to have to deal with a lot of opposition and ridicule, initially not many people are going to take you seriously, unless you are so incredibly talented that you blow them away with awe. The truth is people are going to discourage you at every point, you are going to face a lot of rejection and even humiliation. Your friends and family may also make fun of you. There are two reasons behind this, one is they actually fear for you and don’t want to see you fail. Only parents and people really close to you will fall into this category. The second group is the one that does not want you to succeed, because they themselves failed. So they try their best to pull you down like the crabs they are, to make you average and mediocre like the rest of them. The question is do you have what it takes kick away all these negative forces and emerge victorious?

Finally if there is one last bit of advice you should always remember if you want to make money from your passion, it is this : In Life it is not the person with the greatest talent that will succeed, the one who will succeed is the person who has decent talent, a sensible strategy and an indomitable will to succeed. The question is, are you going to be that person?

Loved this article? You will also enjoy the related article How To Follow Your Passion And Succeed

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The writer of this article, Anubhav Srivastava is an author, motivational speaker and the director of Carve Your Destiny, a first of its kind inspirational documentary featuring some of the most famous personalities from diverse fields, who teach the viewers how they too can make all of their dreams come true. The movie itself has been seen on Youtube by over 800,000 people. Anubhav has also been featured in numerous International and India Media outlets such as BBC , The Times of India, Hindustan Times, Rediff.com, Leicester Mercury and many others.

Email Anubhav Srivastava for coaching, consulting or motivational speaking queries at anubhav101@gmail.com. Facebook Profile: http://facebook.com/anubhav981

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