At some point in your life, perhaps during your younger, innocent years, you may have fantasized about turning your life’s passion into something worthwhile and hopefully, make a difference or perhaps a name for yourself. As we go along with our lives, we easily found ourselves slowly setting aside our passion and get into mundane, unproductive careers for the sake of normalcy. Well, that’s what life is all about and seldom do we see successful people who just followed their passion and never wavered. Your passion will have to wait until you’re able to support yourself no matter what.
In truth, turning your passion into business is a lot like gambling. You can either win or lose but no one can ever tell what it will be. Some may openly express their doubts about this new venture of yours while others might suggest that you think of it many times before you actually throw everything out the window especially if you are already doing well with your current business. While these people may not help you at all, never bear a grudge for they are only concerned about your welfare, instead, take it as a challenge that old dogs can learn new tricks after all.
That’s the beauty of retirement and golden years. When you retire, it is more or less the same as saying, you are now free to do whatever you want without any kind of obligation or responsibility to the people around you. Retirement gives you the freedom to be yourself and actually own your life. Now is the right time to pursue your passion and hopefully be able to support yourself in doing so. However, seniors should also understand that Rome was not built overnight and it may take some time before you see the fruits of your labor. It’s more like starting all over again and the road to your goal may be a little rocky than usual especially if you’ve grown too far from your passion.
Switching careers later in life involves challenges. Your biggest hindrance must be age discrimination as most of my friends have discovered. Following you passion may require you to take courses and classes in which you will have classmates barely out of their puberty years, worse if you’re much older than your own professor. Also there will be insurmountable test of faith to conquer and a 360 degree lifestyle change that you must deal with. There will be risks and expect internal and external stress from happening. During this phase, it is important to know where your motives are. Are you doing this to really pursue your passion or you’re just escaping your current work environment? Knowing where you really should be will help you get through this very hard stage of your development.