That means figuring out better ways to maximize your effectiveness on the job. You have to figure out your strengths and put them to use whenever and wherever possible. You need to get results in an efficient manner.

Stress Management

You also need to make sure that you practice stress management and keep and your mind clear, so you can think on your feet and stay sharp. This may seem like a tall order, but if you follow the tips set forth here, you’ll find you can increase your effectiveness before you know it.

Identify Strengths And Weaknesses

First and foremost, you need to identify your work-related strengths and weaknesses. These can be both big and small. Are you really good at coming up with new ideas to solve problems? Do you have a knack for making great visuals for presentations? Is there room for improvement when it comes to staying organized? Are you great with emails but tongue-tied on the phone?

Once you figure out what you’re good at, you can start brainstorming ways to utilize those skills wherever possible. You might be surprised to discover that there are other areas of your job that can benefit from your talents.

Likewise, if you understand your weaknesses, you can try to improve upon them. Seek out a coworker who is really good at something you need to improve in, and ask for their advice. Look to your boss or another trusted senior staffer as an example and mentor. If you flatter them by telling them you admire the way they do something, they’ll be happy to give you some tips.

Be More Productive

Once you’ve worked on your strengths and weaknesses, you need to figure out how to maximize your time and work more efficiently. Utilize email reminders and your calendar to keep you on track with meetings and deadlines. If your work load starts to get out of control, figure out what work can be delegated to reliable coworkers who have some extra time on their hands. Make sure to promise them that you’ll return the favor, and follow through with that promise.

Never underestimate the power of teamwork if a project is too big for you. Better to share part of the credit with another coworker on a successfully executed piece of work than to take full credit for a poorly done job because you got in over your head.

Another way to maximize your time is to figure out what parts of the day you are typically more productive. Do you do your best work first thing in the morning, or a couple of hours after lunch? Schedule your work to coincide with your particular power time, so that you work on the most intense, difficult projects during those hours when you’re at the top of your game.

Remember To Relax

Keeping yourself alert and on point is also important. Take brief breaks, in ten or fifteen minute chunks, every couple of hours. That will help your mind stay fresh and sharp, and keep your eyes from getting fatigued from staring at the computer screen for too long. Taking a walk around the block or to another part of the building will get your blood flowing and keep you energized. That will definitely help the quality of your work. It might even put you in a better mood, which your coworkers will certainly appreciate.

Combine a strong work ethic with smart, strategic planning and these tactics, and there just might be a promotion-related meeting with your boss in the not-so-distant future.

When the fine folks over at Premier Student Loans offered to do a guest post about making money by following your passions, I jumped at the chance to get some quality content for the blog, since my hands are still too full for me to consistently add new content to this site. So, enjoy this guest post, give some serious thought to the role of education in your own success plan, and feel free to leave a comment if you’d like to share your thoughts!

Success, including financial prosperity, rarely comes to those who lack direction or purpose. Most of us possess a loose network of desires, tendencies and interests that guide us to choose a profession and chart a satisfactory direction for our lives.

Perhaps our first stab at a career came when we took the first job we could get, just to get away from, or to please Mom and Dad. Many of us just go on from there, working this or that job, interesting or not. While your job may not necessarily be your life, since you will spend 30 to 50 percent of your life at work, it stands to reason that doing something that you are absolutely crazy about will, at least, make the time go faster.

Stick With Your Passion

All of us want to make a living doing something we really love, but lack the self-confidence to pursue, such as being involved in medical case management, a painter, a gourmet chef, an automobile mechanic, or a writer. As Jack Palance said in the film “City Slickers”, “The secret to life is to pick one thing and stick with it.” The adhesive that will help us “stick with it” and live the lives we love is passion.

On unique occasions, such as being laid off, succumbing to job burn-out, or just wanting more out of life, we decide to make a change and prepare a clean slate on which to plot our next course. It is at these times that our passions, our burning desires, will give us direction and motivation to pursue the next big thing in our lives.

The Other Side of the Passion Coin

We should not accept the objects of our passions on face value, but rather discover what it is about them that really float our boats. If you feel passionate about “helping people”, careers in that field number in the hundreds. They can range from being a live-in aid for a disabled person to going to medical school and becoming a pathologist. On the one hand, a live-in aid has intensive contact with his or her client, including bathing, feeding, and toilet procedures. A pathologist rarely sees patients and works in a lab, preparing specimens and doing hours of microscopic analyses. Both jobs would qualify as “helping people.” The trick to choosing a living by following your passions is to explore careers that offer the most satisfaction that also have the fewest disagreeable features.

Find That Special Niche

A passion for art is also a gossamer-like concept. If all you want to do is paint wildlife and fill up page after page in your sketchbooks, you should run that up the flagpole and go full speed ahead. However, if you passionately love art, and think you should become an artist, but never doodle in the margins of your schoolbooks and are hesitant to make that first mark on a piece of illustration board, look deeper into your passion to discover that special niche.

Perhaps an easier route to living your passion is to look at what you already do. What is the one thing you do that you are always thinking about, analyzing, and doing in your spare time? Making a living while doing what you are passionate about may sound more difficult than hanging in there with your safe old job, but you can seamlessly transition into a new career by setting aside time in the evenings instead of doing non-productive things such as watching TV. There are distance learning courses, online degree programs, and web sites that can teach you just about anything.

Engage!

If you are ready to commit to making money by following your passions, set the stage by making time for yourself, being honest with yourself about your talents and passions, doing all the research, and establishing a game plan. Let the transformation begin!

Veteran readers of this blog will note that I have been out of the loop recently, and the subject of finding what you are passionate about is a large part of the very reason why I dropped out of the blogosphere for so long. In short, I have been struggling with how best to spend the time and resources that I dedicate to my career, and I recently got a wonderful bit of assistance in that regard: Brian Kim’s awesome book, How to FINALLY Find What You Love to Do AND Get Paid For Doing It.

Back in July 2007, I did a review of one of Brian’s other books, The Hidden Secret in Think and Grow Rich, and since that book was incredibly useful, I was ecstatic to hear that Brian had released something new. The concept of finding what it is that we are passionate about is something that so very many people struggle with. After reading Brian’s Book, I can honestly say that the system contained in his book is the best one that I have seen yet.

As Brian so eloquently points out in the book, many people are “secretly leading lives of quiet desperation,” and despite their desire to find fulfillment and financial success, very few people are able to find and stick to a system that allows them to do so. As a result, many people end up just doing whatever they are good at and/or educated for, and what they actually WANT to be doing rarely even enters into the equation.

Using myself as an example, this blog has been up for several years, and although it has been a success on every measurable level, it became more and more apparent to me over time that simply blogging for a living – although enjoyable – was not enough for me. My life requires more of a consistent challenge than just writing provided to me, and I was left asking myself just what it was that I DID want to do.

Although I still love blogging and working on the Internet, I can’t honestly say that I am passionate enough about blogging to see it as my “mission” in life. Does it hold value for other people? Absolutely, and for that I am grateful. However, my destiny lies along a different path, and Brian’s book really helped to open my eyes to some core concepts that needed to be considered as I mapped out the next stages of my life.

How to Find your Passions

There are other books out there on the subject of finding your passions, but as Brian points out in How to FINALLY Find What You Love to Do AND Get Paid For Doing It, most books on this topic ask you to think about the DETAILS of a passion-filled life, but they never really tell you how to find that passion to begin with. The details (type of work, ideal work day, income potential, etc.) are just a small part of the equation compared to the importance of finding the passion FIRST, and then working out the less important details once the passionate foundation has been laid.

In addition to the step by step process that Brian lays out in the book, he is quick to also add in that using the power of your subconscious mind is also an integral part of finding your passions. Brian’s system advises you to not only make a consistent conscious effort towards finding your passions, but to also use your subconscious mind as an active ally in the process, and to respond quickly whenever inspiration or “ah-ha moments” strike.

Did you find your passions?

Another thing I love about the book is that there is a 10-question “test” that you can apply once you think you have nailed down your passions. It is easy to get excited about a new idea or a new plan of action, but if the new passion won’t fuel a long-term process, then it’s not really a passion to begin with.

Chapter 5 is entitled How You’ll Know You’ve Truly Found What You Love to Do, and the 10-question test does a great job of separating temporary enthusiasm from the long-term mindset that true passions are made up of.

How to Make Money with your Passions

There are really only 2 ways of making money: You either use your resources to work for and invest in yourself, or you use those resources to benefit someone else, a.k.a. – an employer. Both of those systems have their benefits, and this book does not take sides. Brian has a section about how to make money as an employee while following your passions, and a separate section for how to make money as a passionate Entrepreneur.

Both of those sections of the book include the same “questions equal answers” mentality, and the questions that you ask yourself about how to monetize your passions are the critical first step towards finding useful answers. People who find the wrong answers are the same people who asked the wrong questions. For both the employee route, as well as the entrepreneurial route, Brian lists the types of questions that you should ask yourself.

I was also very impressed with the short, yet extremely useful section that he put together for entrepreneurs who want to monetize their passions. His overview of the entrepreneurial process of making money while loving what you do is only a few pages long, but it covers a lot of ground and definitely points the would be entrepreneur in the right direction.

Conclusion

Overall, the book How to FINALLY Find What You Love to Do AND Get Paid For Doing It promises a lot, and if you are willing to go through the processes described in the book, you will indeed get a lot out of your time investment. Discovering what to do with the rest of your life is worth a little bit of homework, don’t you think?

For me personally, I have already changed my own mindset about the future, and I have a renewed sense of hope and confidence as a result. Even just a short time after reading the book,  I have already gotten a huge amount of value from it.

Brian Kim has written a lot of great content over the years, and despite the massive impact that this book will have on the lives of anyone who reads it, the cost is very low.

Big props to you, Brian, and thanks for this great book that will help to put so many people on the right path!

Pick up your own copy of
How to FINALLY Find What You Love to Do AND Get Paid For Doing It

BONUS#1: ($12 value) Get a FREE Copy of “The Introspection Workbook” – Use it to help discover the kind of work that’s suited just for you!

BONUS#2: ($12 value) Get a FREE copy of the s
pecial report: ’3 Real Life Stories Of Those Who Did It’ – Read the real life stories of those who have managed to find what they love to do and got paid for doing it! See how they used the information in the book to do so.

We’ve all done it. We decide to find a new job, or start a business, and the first things that we think about are the types of work we are qualified for, what employment is available, or what type of business we think that we could succeed at. How is it possible that an entire culture so completely ignores their own desires when it comes to making career decisions?

Am I saying that you should ignore the facts and try to sell surfboards in Siberia? No. However, if you lived in Siberia and you really wanted to sell surfboards, you COULD find a way!

There is an almost global self-limiting belief that our ability to make money is dependent on factors that  – in truth – are merely side notes to a wealth creation plan, rather than being the main considerations:

• To do a certain type of work you need a certain type of education. I call B.S.! Actually, what you need is experience, and the only way to get experience is to do the work. Ask any college grad under the age of 25 who is out looking for a job right now how effective their degree has been in landing them a high-paying position.
• The economy has a lot to do with the success of any given business model. I call B.S.! Yes, the economy is a factor, but if the economy is the main consideration, why are people still buying Jaguars, Ferrari’s, 5-figure pieces of jewelry, cinema-like home entertainment systems, and why are they still taking vacations to the Bahamas?
• A proper business plan is needed to ensure success. I call B.S.! When I ran my own personal training business, I shut it down at the height of my success when I would have made $100,000 that year. My entire business plan consisted of a website and one monthly advertisement that I paid less than $10 per month for.

There is only one factor that should be your prime consideration when you are trying to decide what you want to do for a living, and that is what you want to do. No matter what it is that you truly enjoy doing in life, there is some way that you can make money by doing it.

• People get paid right now to go bar-hopping with tourists on paid “pub crawls”.
• People get paid to design, test, and play video games.
• People get paid to eat at the finest restaurants, and then write about it.
• People get paid to write smarmy content on the Internet even though the content is given away for free.
• People get paid to travel all over the world and film themselves enjoying the global culture.
• People get paid to go diving and snorkeling in the most beautiful waters that this planet has to offer.

I could go on and on, but you should get the point by now. You can get paid to do what you love, no matter what it is that you love to do.

Pretty cool, huh?

The fastest way to determine whether or not your present career or a career that you are considering is going to be successful over the long-term is to write up a Personal Vision Statement for your career, and then simply compare your career options to that statement.

In order to write up your Personal Vision Statement, you simply need to ask yourself:

1. What do I truly enjoy doing?
2. What parameters have to be a part of (or absent from) my career?

That’s it! Don’t turn it into an 8-page dissertation – this is just an outline that you can use as a sanity check when you are considering your career options. Here is my example:

• What do I truly enjoy doing? I enjoy empowering people to create success and happiness in their lives.
• What parameters have to be a part of (or absent from) my career? The majority of my work has to be able to be done from anywhere in the world, and my work has to include residual sources of income.

Do you see how this is an outline that I can use to compare career options, rather than it being a business plan? Whenever I come up with an idea for a business, or when I am offered a job, or when I consider getting involved in a joint venture, all I have to do is compare that opportunity to my Personal Vision Statement. If the business idea, the job, or the joint venture does not fit into my Personal Vision Statement, then I do not get involved in it.

This is not rocket science, people, so please don’t over-think it. Ask yourself those 2 questions, and then give yourself honest answers based on what you want – not on what you think is possible.

What is possible is limited only by what you believe that you can do. Create that belief by being passionate about your desires, and success will be a natural – and glorious – side effect.

Acknowledgment: This post was inspired by Shama Hyder’s free report, Online Marketing Plan. Thanks, Shama!