How to Make Your Day Job Work For You
It’s a paycheck AND an opportunity to live more intentionally
Let’s talk about this cultural obsession with “quitting your day job.”
There is an attitude—propagated by those perky millennial solopreneurs who pay to insert themselves into your Instagram and Facebook feeds—that any creative person still working a day job isn’t ambitious or savvy enough to “make it.” This may be true for some folks, but certainly not for all of us. As I wrote in Day Job? I Wish!, I’ve been writing novels and various works of nonfiction for almost half my life now. Hustle? Yup, I’ve spent the past nineteen years hustling. Self promotion? Uh huh, I do that too. Sure, I could take (or create) other opportunities for a more reliable income—I could copy-write, ghostwrite, edit, coach—but all of these career-related work options will siphon my creative energy from the work I actually want to do. For a resolutely-impractical artist like me, a good day job provides the financial security that unlocks the freedom to write those gleefully-uncommercial books-of-the-heart—not to mention a prime chance to level up on my time management skills.
Some day jobs will suck your soul, and there’s no mindset adjustment that will render them much more livable. It may take awhile, but you will eventually find a day job that’s a…
