What To Do If You Can’t Find Your Dream Job

Are you struggling with finding your dream job?

When you’re in college, you imagine that life in your 20s will involve living the life with a job that you love. You think that you’re going to have a blast at work while the millions roll in. In reality, you may struggle to even find a job that you can put up with or that pays you enough to even afford to be able to get there.

What do you do if you can’t find your dream job?

Being a recent college grad, the idea of finding a dream job is one of most popular topics that I read about or think about.

I recently found an eye-opening piece on Zen Habits about how you should create your dream job if you can’t find one. This really got me thinking because I was always under the impression that you had to find the dream job. I never thought of actually trying to create this dream job for myself.

The author of the blog, Leo Babauta, explores this topic in great detail and briefly leads us down the path to show us how he created his dream job. Instead of reading about conventional career advice, I find it rather interesting to learn about creating your own dream job.

What does Leo recommend that you do if you want to create your own job?

1. Think of your big idea.
2. Find your funding.
3. Get good.
4. Build an audience.
5. Build income.

Is it really that simple to create your dream job after college?

I summarized the post into the key headings. I do believe firmly that creating your dream job can be broken down into those general themes. The obvious caveat is that it will take more trial and error for some of us to get there.

The timing will also vary on a case-by-case basis. I’ve seen new entrepreneurs hit it big ever since I started. I’ve also seen many intelligent individuals give up for whatever reason after just a few months of trying.

Before we dive in, who’s this post/idea about creating your dream job for?

Anyone that’s unemployed or stuck at a lousy job after spending years in the college system. This is for those who want to finally do something fulfilling.

Reading about how someone else managed to create their own job really inspires me. I always love to hear about how someone got to where they are today. With that being said, a post like this isn’t for those that will feel inspired for 10 minutes after and then do nothing.

Let’s break down the key steps to creating your dream job.

Think of your big idea to work for yourself.

Do you have a big idea? Do you have one thing that you can focus on? What strategy that you can promote?

Think of your big idea and launch. See it through. See if there’s a market. See if anyone cares.

I actually consider it a waste of time to sit around with your friends trying to think of ways to get rich. There’s nothing like testing, testing, and more testing.

Find your funding.

This is the beauty of the Internet and social media. Any idiot (me included) can start a blog and start writing about whatever they feel like.

Unless you want to open up a restaurant or need to invest capital into assets, the odds are that you can start a profitable business with just $1,000 and lots of TIME. Actually I feel that a lack of funding is nothing more than an excuse or just a way out.

The bigger issue is finding the time (while still paying the bills) and the effort (time management skills). If you can hold down a part-time job while you manage your time to grow a side business, then I feel that you’ll at least be on the path to success.

Leo did it while raising a family. I certainly don’t have a family to raise or any valid excuse.

Here are some possible sources of funding:

• Work a part-time gig.
• Offer freelancing services until you can rely 100% on your own products to bring in the money.

If you absolutely can’t find some serious funding then make up for it with time. Invest your time today and get paid tomorrow.

Get good.

I really believe that you don’t have to be a “expert” at something to make money.

You just have to possess a deep understand of the topic, be good at helping others, and find people that are willing to pay for your services.

Don’t stress about the minor issues. You’ll get the best on-the-job training that money can buy. Do you really think that a personal trainer learned everything from a textbook? Nope. They learned on the job by figuring out what works for each unique situation. This is no different for you.

Build an audience.

This part is the most fun in my opinion. Sometimes I publish a post and receive no comments. Other days I get 20 comments and find it difficult to respond to the comments. There will be times where I get a guest post published or a link from a popular blog and my traffic hits record numbers. The next day nobody visits Studenomics. I find this part to be the most fun aspect of blogging. Well, of course I would love to have a ready-built audience, but it’s still fun trying to turn a little blog on money management into something that’s read by many.

As time changes, building an audience gets more unique. When I originally published this article in 2011, there weren’t that many options to build an audience. Now you have the following platforms to help you with building an audience:

• Pinterest.
• Facebook.
• Instagram.
• iTunes.
• Tik Tok.
• Twitter.

Did I miss anything? Get out there and build that audience up.

Build income.

This is where things get really interesting. Making money from your dream job is the most unconventional way of earning money in the world. At your traditional job you show up for your 8 hours and get paid.

When you venture off on your own EVERYTHING CHANGES.

You get paid from many different sources. Some bloggers earn enough money from ad revenue alone to be full-time. Others have a diverse income pool. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer here but I do know that you’ll be surprised by some of money making opportunities that will come along as you begin building your dream career.

The following articles will show you exactly how you can start making money with detailed tips to help you get started ASAP:

1. The exact steps to getting paid as a writer.
2. How to start an online business in 6 easy steps.
3. How to make money off social media.
4. How you can make money online.

You have to find a way to bring the money in. You may not be raking the cash in for your first year, but you have to stick with it.

That’s what you can do if you’re not satisfied with your current career path. It won’t be easy. It won’t happen over one weekend. It may even take years. On the bright side, you have the resources to create your dream job.

Do you have any experience with creating your own dream job? Have you found that dream job yet?