Are you stuck in a job you hate, believing the myth that you have to choose between making money and doing work you love? I'm here to tell you that you CAN find fulfilling work that pays well!

The key is to reconnect with the activities and interests that lit you up as a kid. What did you love doing just for the joy of it? Use that as a starting point to explore career paths that align with your passions. Take small steps, like volunteering, taking a class, or job shadowing to test the waters.

You don't have to have it all figured out! As you take action, you'll gain clarity on what you want. Don't let limiting beliefs hold you back. You have unique gifts to share with the world through work that feeds your soul.

Give yourself permission to pursue work you love - you're worth it! For more inspiration, check out the Finding Work You Love episode on the Five Year You podcast.

Today's episode is called finding work you love. And it's our intention that at the end of this episode, you understand that it is possible to do work you love and some steps that can start moving you towards that. Welcome to the five year you podcast, a show dedicated to helping you become the best version of yourself one day at a time. I'm Andrew.

And I'm Cat. And we promise to keep it raw, real, and relatable.

Are you ready to grow? How are you doing today, Cat?

I'm doing really good. How about you?

I'm doing good. I'm really excited for this episode. We came up with the topic. I was like, oh, yeah, this is. This is good, because I think there's a really big myth around this. The myth is you either make a lot of money or you do work you love and there is no middle ground. What are your thoughts on that?

I mean, I think that's a common thing people say, or you'll hear young people ask, like, oh, my parents really want me to do this, or they're encouraging me to do this, but I want to follow my passion. And it seems to be like a this or that thing. Like, either go and, you know, earn a decent income or follow your passion and don't. But we're here to sort of break down that idea and to encourage people that you can find work that you love that pays well. It's possible for sure.

Absolutely. What would advice would you give somebody who's getting out of, let's say, high school or is in kind of like a midlife point where they're like, I don't know what to do. This job isn't for me, but it makes money. So definitely not somebody coming out of high school. What would you say to someone that's going, what do I do?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a good question. And two episodes ago, we did an episode called the rules are fake. And I would encourage people to listen to that one after this one because it's sort of one of those rules that people think that they have to pick something and stick with it for life. I mean, that might have been, you know, what our grandparents did in the generations before that, but it's just not the case anymore. It's challenging for people to make a change. But if you're feeling sort of in a rut or run down, if you've been working for a while, changing up your job or switching to something else can be revitalizing for you. And if you are in high school or you're thinking about what to do, whether to go to college, what to major in, and you don't know. My advice to you is that you don't have to have it all figured out.

I went to college and then graduate school for history, and I'm a financial writer and a podcaster now for a personal development show that you're listening to. You know, although I don't regret going to school for that, it informs a lot of my writing, and it's helped in a lot of different ways. Yeah, it's just totally not what I went to school for, and that's okay. And so I think there are a couple things people can do, Andrew, and maybe you can shed some light on this, too. Like, if they have, like, no idea where to start, if they want to do work they love or they want to do work they're passionate about, what should they be thinking about or journaling about to even start that thought process.

So I'll share my story with this because I find that it might help people. I was an accountant, and that was basically a decision that I made in grade five when I heard accountants make a lot of money. So I. That was. I mean, I locked in early on that one, and then I kind of very early on realized that I didn't like what I was doing. So I started to think of the things that I liked to do as I was a kid. Some of them were, I love doing puzzles. I loved writing.

I love figuring things out. I love challenges, but more importantly, I love short hit challenges. So I'm not great at doing ten year plan and working towards something like that as just the one thing. For example, if I wanted to be, I don't know, a youtuber, and I knew I had to do ten years, and that was my only goal, that wouldn't work. But what I could do is go, okay, well, I got to do ten videos, and that's something that will motivate me. So kind of knowing yourself and knowing how you're going to motivate yourself is a big part of this, because it's going to be a journey. You're not going to. Some people burn the boats when it comes to this stuff.

I'm not a proponent of that. I really do think you can put your feet in the water and test them and see what happens. I would say that the best thing you can do is make a list, journal all the things that you used to love to do as a kid. Eat candy, maybe write, maybe play sports, whatever it is. Maybe you were the one who liked to get people together and host. Maybe you were the one who just wanted to play games and you're always coming up with new ways to play a game or something like that. For me, it was, I like to write. I like money.

I like learning about computers and all that stuff. Kind of coalesced into becoming a financial blogger because I was into that. I understood, too at that point that I was going to need, I think I gave myself five years to be decent at it because I didn't have any experience writing. I didn't go to school for that. I went to school for accounting. We don't write, in fact, anything. Writing an accounting in the same sentence just makes me weak in the knees and very, very tired. So what I did was I found this one kind of new aspect, and I gave myself permission to try it.

And I wasn't making any money at it in the beginning, and that was okay. I still had my job and I was still testing the waters and going, okay, I need to learn how to build a website. I need to learn how these websites make money because nobody really told me that. And then I needed to figure out how to write in a way that communicates, that resonates with people, all kind of big things. But I love doing it. And when I love doing it, I could stay up till 02:00 in the morning writing, because I love what I was writing about when my site went down because I was just curious and decided, what happens if I delete this line of code?

It breaks.

And I think we've all gone through that as bloggers where you're like, I wonder what this is like. Oh, oh, everything's gone. Everything's gone. But you learn those lessons and you give yourself permission to grow and go into it. And the point is, if you have that thing you love doing, you're willing to put the extra hours in, and suddenly the job you're doing is just that thing you need to get out of the way to get to the thing that you love. And the more you do that thing you love, the more you learn about it. You're in the arena, you're learning about it, you're growing, you're doing all these things, and that is how you start to create a career out of it. And in doing that, then you're truly able to find work that you love doing.

I'm going to just kill the rumor right now because I think all of us are. There's that little voice in everybody's head. There are going to be parts of every job or thing you like to do or love to do that you don't like. Cat and I have them. You know, it's kind of like we all like wearing clothes, but not a lot of us like doing laundry, but that's the gig. There are parts of these things. The idea is that you love what you do so much that you're willing to do those little things like bookkeeping or find an accountant or figure out how to do Facebook ads or whatever. The thing is that you're trying to figure out a.

Those are just kind of things you gotta learn. And you may not love them, but you don't mind learning about them because they serve the bigger purpose, which is what you want, doing what you love.

Yeah, I agree with that. I've said to many people who maybe say they don't like their jobs or want to find something they love. I do say, like, I made up my job myself, and there's still things I don't like about it. Like, right now, my accounting software has been, like, messed up and broken for, like, a month. And so, you know, partner with someone who's an accountant. That's my advice to everyone. So you could get help with stuff, is step one. There's, like, little things that I don't enjoy doing, but the bulk of it I do enjoy.

And I love the advice of thinking about what you liked as a kid, because in order to find work that you love, it has to be something that you're naturally drawn to. It has to be something that you don't have to, like, force yourself to sit down and do. And we all have those things. And Marie Kondo brings this up in her best selling tidying up book. And she said that when all the kids went out to recess when she was growing up in Japan, she stayed inside with her teacher to organize the classroom, and she would, like, love to fix everyone's stuff and, like, help her teacher. She didn't want to go outside and play with the other kids. And so her earliest memories of school are of doing the job that she has now. And so my earliest memories are of writing.

I had, like, a little family newsletter. I was, like, editor of my fifth grade newspaper. Like, all these little things, you know, you are drawn to things and experiences, and it could just be you are an incredibly creative child or a very active child. There's all sorts of things that you can do, and you have to think outside of the box. There might be jobs you don't even know about, haven't heard about yet that utilize, like, some of these skills and natural inclinations that you have that just make it a little bit easier to get up in the morning and do the job.

I agree. I think one of the earliest things I heard about that was because I think a lot of a good chunk of kids are, well, I want to be a professional athlete. And the reality is that's a very, very small amount of people that get into like, the higher echelons of it. However, if you have other things you like to do around that, like let's say you love a certain sport, we'll use hockey because Canada and what else is there? It's middle of summer and I'm still going to talk about hockey, but whatever. But like, let's say you like, you like that and you like writing and you like strategy, or you like, you like analyzing things, you like watching videos and like figuring out tactics and stuff like that. There are rules for you. You, maybe you're going to be a coach instead of like a player. Maybe you're going to be an analyst.

Maybe you're going to be just a sports writer. There are other things that you can do in that arena that maybe aren't the thing you start out thinking you're going to be, but being open and seeing that, you know, I think a lot of times when you get your feet wet in that in a particular arena, and I really badly using the hockey arena pun here, I guess, but when you're doing that, you start to see the things you're willing to do and what you're not willing to do. You might decide, you know what I really want to be. I'm just going to use the professional hockey player thing or professional athlete. That's great. And then you realize, okay, well, they leave home at 14 to go join these camps in different parts of the world and they go billet places to be and you might be, I don't want to leave home. Okay, so that's okay. You might look at it and go, I don't want to do the diet and the, you know, the constant working out that they do.

And basically your whole life is exercise and, you know, I'm kind of like my chips. So maybe that's the thing you don't want to do. That's okay. You find you put your feet in the arena, you go, okay, I like this part of it, but I really don't like this part of it. So how do I stay in the sports arena and eat Doritos? And that's okay just because you start off with one idea, don't be so locked into it that you exclude everything else because there's likely something much better that you haven't thought of. A good chunk of careers today didn't exist 20 years ago because of the fast changes of everything. Geez, five years ago, the act of, like, using AI for anything just wasn't a thing. And now it's everywhere.

So we just have to always be open to what's there. So when it comes to finding work you love, give yourself permission first to go after that thing, whatever it is, find out those things that nurture you, and then take the first step. See what that feels like.

I agree. And this is not encouraging you to quit the job you hate. At the end of the day, we are both pretty conservative financially, and so, you know, when I was moving from my full time job to becoming an entrepreneur, I waited until my business income surpassed my day job income for about three months straight to where I felt like it was going to be, like, not a one hit thing or just like, I got lucky one month until there was some consistency there. And I also waited until I had a good amount of savings as well just to sort of carry me, knowing that my income would fluctuate, knowing that things could impact it and change and, you know, overdose. I think I'm at, like, I became self employed in 2014, 2014. So I've made ten years of self employment in January. And there's been a lot of ups and downs. There's been a time or two I've applied for full time jobs because I got just fed up with the ups and downs of it all.

But then I've always come back to working for myself because I just love the flexibility of it and I love what I do. Not every day is great. There are a lot of things that Andrew and I have dealt with in our business that have been unpleasant or surprises or Google updates. It's unpredictable. But at the end of the day, I just. I love being independent, and I love having my own schedule, and I've found ways to sort of diversify my income, to insulate myself against sort of the ups and downs of the market and the economy. And I guess what I'm saying is that, you know, ten years into self employment for me, I'm still adjusting and figuring things out. So don't think that it has to be perfect in order to switch.

So you might be working in HR right now, but you've always loved computers and, like, you're a big gamer and, you know, maybe you take some game design classes at night or coding classes, or maybe you just, there are so many different platforms now where you can affordably take classes just to see what you're drawn to and just give yourself that option that, you know, instead of watching the latest Netflix show, you just, you work on a new skill and just see if you like it. You know, worst case scenario, you just stay in the job that you have now, but at least give yourself a chance. Maybe there's someone you can shadow. You know, maybe you were going to go to law school, but then you had kids and you decided not to. Well, maybe go shadow a lawyer or connect with several attorneys on LinkedIn and ask them what their job's really like and if they're happy doing it, and try to see if it's worth the time and effort to go back and do it and try to get a bunch of different opinions and try to figure out what those jobs are really like, because it ain't over till it's over. There's lots of people that go back to school and go back and change career paths at many different ages. Again, the rules are fake. We did a whole episode about it.

You can change at any time. And getting out of your comfort zone and, like, making your brain kind of work and activate is a good way to sort of beat some mental health downs. If you're feeling down, if you're feeling a lull, if you're feeling bored with life, kind of like pouring into yourself and figuring out the kind of work that you might like is actually a really great way to add a spark back to your life.

Absolutely. I love that. I like the idea of job shadowing. In his book, the Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, Harv Ecker talks about how he wanted to open up a pie shop. And instead of, like, going and opening up a pie shop, he went and got a job being a supply guy in the pie shop so he could learn the business and see if he actually liked it. And I think thats a really good example. I mean, you dont necessarily have to apply it. Like, if you say to them, look, im thinking of going into this, do you mind if I just volunteer here for a week? Most places will say yes, because free labor is free labor, and its way more beneficial for you to take a week of holidays or a week off or whatever in your evenings, however you want to do it, and do this to see if you like it before you carry on further down that road.

I would also say, again, you mentioned the rules are fake when you look at this, if that voice in your head is going, yeah, right. I can't do that. I can't be this thing. Ask where that voice started from, because it's not you. You heard that from someone. You got that put into you at school or through family or whatever, and there are people that do things they love for a living, and some of them make really good money, and others are just happy with what they're doing. If you make finances the basis of every of all your decisions, and let's face it, that is a big part of it, but if you make finances your sole driver for all your decisions, you're never going to really enjoy life because you won't ever get bacon on your hamburger because that costs extra. You're not going to do the little things because they cost more.

And that is where a lot of the pleasures lie, is the little things. I would also challenge you to start getting around a few people that love what they do. Birds of a feather flock together. And I think a big part of that is that if you are at a job where everybody hates their job, don't look to those people to find something that you love to do or to encourage you to go spread your wings and fly or try these new things. They're not there. I've been there. I'm sure, Cat, you have too. Where people just kind of, they have their nine to five, and the idea of working or doing anything that's not relaxation after that time, they're just not going to give into.

But if you give yourself permission to kind of look at things and go, you know what? There are people who love what they do, and I'm just going to find these people. And if I find these people, maybe it'll catch on with me and I'll be like, yeah, you know, I can be a writer, I can be a musician, I can be whatever type of thing. And it might not be the way you think of it, but that's a, geez, at least you're living your life in a way that it's meaningful for you. Whether that's even 20 minutes a week, that's still worth it.

I agree. You might find that it's not what you think. Like, let's say that you are an at home baker and, you know, you have this, like, side hustle where you bake cakes and, like, you really wish that you could just bake cakes all day because you love it so much. But then maybe you go and you work in a busy bakery for, you know, a week or something and you realize, like, oh, my gosh I don't want this volume. This makes it not fun, you know? And sometimes that can happen, like, you know, having a side hustle. The growth of it is exciting, I know, from personal experience. And then all of a sudden, it's your job, and you're like, oh, no. It's like, you know, when your hobby becomes your job, you don't have a hobby anymore.

So you have to sort of shift your mindset, too. Anybody who is contemplating a change or who's really unhappy in their job right now, it's more of a mental health, emotional, like, deep dive in the beginning than it is like a tactical go, take extra classes and shadow people. Like, it's good to identify why you feel unhappy and what you don't like about it. Is it the hours, is it the commute? You know, you just don't like your team, or you feel disrespected, underpaid, whatever it is, and kind of slowly and, like, quietly start to explore these ideas. But it's a good idea to look within yourself and find what you truly want. Like we said, we call this the layers of life. We have a whole episode, I think it's our third episode, 2nd, 3rd, fourth. One of the early episodes called the Layers of life.

And you think of it like a really detailed target, like the target sign, but like several layers of it. And the inside of the target is you. It's your life. It's your passions, it's the things you really love. It's like the little me, Catherine, that was like making up a fan newspaper, right? And those are all the things I like. But once you get outside of it, you know, your next layer is like the people you love, your family. Well, what are my parents think about this job? Are they going to think that I am serious, I got to go to school. I got to do that.

And then you go out. Out. And the outer layer is affirmations and awards at work and social media and how your life looks and how big your house is and all the material things. And most people in the world live from the outside in. They are basing all of their decisions on how it looks, how it appears to other people, whether or not it's frowned upon or celebrated in their cultures and their families. And then you're last. And so what we encourage here at five e or U is to take the time, and maybe it will take five years for you to peel back the layers, get to the innermost part of yourself to decide what you really like, what you're good at, what like gets you out of bed in the morning and maybe it is a really long run. And yes, you can make a job from that.

Andrew and I probably think ten things right now. Starting a running club, starting a running website, starting a gym specifically for runners, being a running coach, being a life coach. Outside of that, starting something for kids, you know, whatever it is, there are so many things that you can do. It's just about, like Andrew said, surrounding yourself with creative people and people who are in those higher vibrations of enjoying life and just getting yourself out of this, like, sad sort of muck, right? And getting yourself to a different point where you are finally ready to make some type of shift, whatever it may be.

I agree with you. And yeah, I had a few more running business ideas too in there. And that's why in our home study kit for the five year you, we start with your soul and who you really are and who you really want to be. It doesn't have to be super complicated. I am here to help people grow, pure and simple. I'm here to help people heal, grow and become the best versions of themselves. Cat, we're in the same boat with this stuff, the way we do it and everything else will be different. But it's really important that you decide and discover that you came here to figure this out.

If you're listening to a personal growth podcast, it is because there is something in your life you are not happy with. And if you are listening to an episode called finding work you love, it is because you are doing work you hate. And that's a really hard thing to hear.

It is.

But don't you owe it to yourself to take that next step and go, what is it that I am here for? You're not meant to go to work for 40 years at a job. You don't like to sit around and wait till you die. You're here to get up and to discover that true passion that's inside of you that goes, yes, this is the life I was meant to live. This is what makes me feel alive. This is what makes me feel joy. And when you can feel that on a daily basis, you inspire people that you will never know. You inspire people at the grocery store. You inspire your kids.

You inspire your friends, your family, strangers. They all get inspired because you are there living your authentic life. And when you move into authenticity, you are truly inspiring others in ways that I quite frankly, don't understand. But I know it's happening, and I see it all the time. I see it with cat all the time. I see, with anybody I know that does work. They love. They are just an inspiration to everyone else.

And the first thing they say every time is, that's nice for you. I can't do that. And that is complete B's and you know it. And your ego is just coming in and saying this so that you don't pursue something that is truly meaningful for you. Give yourself permission to look into this. You are worth it. I'm done.

Preach. That was amazing. Very motivating. I have nothing to add to that. I think everyone listening should just go back and rerun those last two minutes because they're powerful. And hey, drop us an email anytime. Hello, iveyouryou.com. and you know, we'll chat with you about your idea and we're happy to help.

So drop us a line anytime. We read and respond to every email. All right, Andrew, you had a big kaboom. Finish motivating all of us around here. We do like to share a glimmer at the end of each episode, which is something fun, something happy that we've done lately or something that we're enjoying as a way to end the episode on a high note. So what is your glimmer for today?

First thing that comes to mind, and this is just, I don't know why it delights me, but it really does. I have an aerogarden that I'm growing. Like my little. We say it differently. One of us says herbs, the other one says herbs. And I can't remember which one I say now because we've talked about this so many times off air.

I'm the one that says it. Right.

Okay. So anyway, I'm growing edible plants and I'm making cilantro lime rice with freshly grown cilantro. And it's just something that I really, really love it. I can't explain the joy that it brings me every day to just kind of see these things growing and getting to eat them. I especially living in a condo where you don't have, like a lot of, you don't have land or anything like that. It's just really nice. So that's the thing that's giving me.

Shines, sparkles and shines. Mike limber today is also food related. I would like to share that. Thanks to Andrew, I now have a new snack that I am obsessed with. It is a dried pineapple crunchy snack. It's quite dull. Correct?

Dole. Yeah, Dole. So I think dole is the only one that makes pineapples in this planet now. So, yeah, sorry.

No you're fine. So I just recently went to Canada and spent time with Andrew, and that's when I ate his snacks. But when I came home back to the States. I have purchased dried pineapples from two different places, like target and like, one other spot. Nothing compares. Like. It is not a dried pineapple. It is a dried pineapple with a crunch.

It has the same consistency as, like, a chip. It's very satisfying. So now I have ordered them on Amazon, the dole ones, because I couldn't find them here. Long story short, they should be here in the next day or two, and I'm very excited about them. Highly recommend.

Yeah, they are amazing. I had to refrain from buying a palette of them and, yeah, but there's.

No guilt because it's literally the only ingredient is pineapple. That's it? There's no sugar added or anything?

Nope. It's just pineapple. It's really low calories, too. I was really surprised with that, too.

And they have, like, a chili flavored one, but we just got the regular ones. That's it. That's all I got. Pineapple.

So there you go. Our glimmers this week are food. Food.

They're great snacks. Yay.

All right, listeners, thank you very much. And I. Your homework for this week is to just think about what you love to do as a kid and to take that first step in towards doing just a little more of it.

We're rooting for you.

Yeah, we're rooting for you.

Oh, and don't forget, if you want to get that advice from your future self, head on over to fiveyearyou.com future to get signed up.

Just a reminder, we're two people on the Internet. We're not doctors or anything else, but we do want to help. If you feel that you need professional medical care, please see a licensed medical practitioner.