Blog - 0618 - Be Sensible About Creative Dreams
Blog - June 2018 - Dreams of Creative Careers
Dreams of Creative Careers - June 2018.
If you’re a social media user it’s pretty hard to miss all of the ‘inspirational’ phrases and messages that are regularly splashed around. Most encourage the reader to follow your dreams, live the dream, follow your passion and many more catchy soundbites designed to get us to chase the things that excite and motivate us.
Most people do have dreams of following their passions and living a life doing the things that make us most happy. This is especially true for creatives who have an interest in photography and filmmaking where it’s quite easy to learn some skills, be encouraged by our friends’ assessment of our output (always positive) and then think about taking it up as a career. Those well-meaning phrases on the Internet only add fuel to the fire.
It is of course a good thing to have those dreams and wanting to do the things we love all the time is only human but let’s not forget that bills have to be paid and a roof kept over our heads. If there’s a 9-5 job giving an income then it makes sense to keep at it whilst the alternative lifestyle can be explored. Side-gigs can be a good testing ground of our abilities to see if we're actually any good at it in the real world before we make any leap of faith towards a new career.
Imagine the consequences of taking that leap and finding it impossible to make any money. Whilst all the encouragement is great and well-meaning, it shouldn’t be allowed to go to our heads and ruin us. Be pragmatic, learn and test that new career will bring in cold, hard money first and stay solvent and dry in the meantime!