When our hobby is our job: pros and cons

 We spend a large part of our lives at work, so it’s important that we devote ourselves to something that pleases us and that gives us satisfaction. However, if our professional activity is closely related to a hobby, we may find some disadvantages along with some advantages.

What is a hobby?

A hobby is an activity or pastime that helps us entertain ourselves. It is a task to which we devote some of our free time to pass the time and relieve the stress and anxiety that comes with daily commitments. It’s an escape valve, something we like and are good at.

From hobby to job

In today’s environment, with new technologies allowing us to buy and sell products and services from our homes worldwide, the number of freelancers who have turned their hobby into a profession has grown exponentially.

If you are considering this possibility, you must be aware that it will not be a walk in the park. When you start your business, you’ll find that you need to be aware of a lot more things than you thought.

It is true that you will spend a large part of your day doing what you enjoy so much, but you will also need to spend a lot of time on administrative tasks such as invoicing or bookkeeping, marketing tasks to promote your business, good customer service, etc.

It can also happen that you work for someone else and do something that you really enjoy. Here you do not have the problems associated with running your own business, but others, such as the pressure to meet requirements, prohibitive deadlines or possible problems with colleagues.

In any case, it is clear that you will no longer have the outlet valve at home that you had before. Once a hobby becomes a job, it’s no longer a hobby, so you’ll end up looking for another hobby to enjoy yourself.

How do you go from amateur to pro?

If, despite the above, you still want to do something with your hobby, you should keep in mind that the competition in all areas is very strong. This means that you have to be very good at what you do and specialize as much as possible.

For example, think of creative confectionery. To devote yourself to it, it is not enough for your cakes to be loved by your family and friends, they must have a quality that can be objectively appreciated. Because that guarantees that someone who doesn’t know you at all will want to pay for your products.

But you can’t be satisfied with being good, you have to specialize even more. There are many companies dedicated to creative confectionery. If you want to stand out from the crowd, you need to do something that guarantees you a very specific niche in the market. For example wedding cakes. And to achieve this, you need to spend a lot of time on training.

A hobby is not a professionalized activity, you have to become a professional and that means an investment both in materials and in yourself. Therefore, before starting the adventure, make sure you have the necessary means to be in good shape to stand up to the competition.

The positive side of working on your hobby

We have seen that a professionalization process is required in order to devote oneself to one’s hobby professionally.

But don’t let that discourage you, there is a very positive side to working on something you’re passionate about. Think of all the time you have between now and retirement, surely it’s far better spent doing something you’re good at and enjoying than a job that doesn’t fulfill you.

Work has an economic dimension, but also an important psychological dimension. When you devote yourself to what you love, the encouragement to improve and keep going grows, even though it may be difficult at times.

When a person likes what they do and puts passion and affection into it, that’s something that shows. In your case, the result of your work will always be better than that of someone who does the same but does not have the same passion for the work.

Should you devote yourself professionally to your hobby? You’ve already seen that there are pros and cons to this, put them on a scale and decide if the benefits it can bring you outweigh the cons.