Careers Supplemented by Hobbies: A Different Kind of Work Life Balance
No job is perfect; you’ll rarely get to utilize all your skills, so find ways to channel them through your hobbies! This can help you achieve a different type of skills balance, leveraging aspects from both your work and life.
One of my past clients came from a very corporate, data-driven analyst background. A very numbers and facts oriented role. However, they were also very fond of art and graphic design, so they wanted to consider how they might do more visually creative tasks at work.
Well, one of their options is to look for opportunities at their current role, but depending on how much visually creative work they want to do on a weekly basis, their existing analyst role may not be able to provide that. In fact, they might end up stepping on their company’s graphic designer’s toes. It’s a fundamentally different role.
Another option is to change careers. To avoid stepping on a different department’s toes, join that department! However, in a tough job market, that’s usually not a very quick or easy thing to do. On top of that, changing careers is usually a diagonal step backwards into a different career track and then back in experience and tenure. This is often accompanied by a salary cut.
THE SHORTEST PATH
While I highly encourage exploring and investigating different roles, I also recommend pragmatism relative to your goals and situation. For instance, if your goal is to stay employed or get a new job as quickly as possible, your best bet is to consider your shortest path—the one with the least amount of resistance.
The shortest path to a job is the one you’ve already been on OR is very similar to your current path. It’s paved brick by brick by your past work experience and skills.
The aforementioned client at the beginning wanted to find a similar role, so they could find maintain a stable income ASAP. This meant foregoing a role where they could be more artistic and creative though. Hmm Decisions, decisions… 🤔 So I suggested to them, why not have both? Here’s how 👇
HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT
Your work is not likely to exercise all of your great skills or job preferences, so turn to things you can do outside of work: your hobbies.
Following the earlier example of my analyst client, they could continue pursuing analyst roles in order to stay employed. However, on the side, they could take up their favorite medium of art as a hobby: illustrating, ceramics, writing, tufting, painting, photography, etc. This might be enough to scratch that itch and fulfill their artistic right side brain.
Perhaps gradually at the same time, they could work towards a marketing analyst role—one of the closest roles they can get as an analyst while collaborating frequently with creatives. (That’s what I call: Riding a Donkey While Searching For A Horse (as it’s better than searching on foot). Based on a Chinese proverb, it’s the idea of utilizing what you already have to set up your next move. 🐎💨 🫏)
HOBBY TO SIDE HUSTLE
BUT! Hobbies are inherently casual, so they don’t usually have a sense of accountability that will help you grow. This is where side hustles come into play. Turning your hobby into a side hustle makes things official. Promising an artisanal good or service requires professionalism and accountability. It also usually forces you to develop other skills like sales, marketing, and entrepreneurship.
I took my own advice and created Two-Dots Co., and in doing so, I exercise several skills—some of which enhance what I do in my day job as a Product Manager while others allow me to stretch and grow in ways that aren’t available in my role.
🫶 Coaching services require me to stay on top of the job market, and fine-tune my ability to mentor, provide constructive feedback, ask critical questions, craft impactful stories, and synthesize on the spot.
📑 Digital templates & worksheets exercise UX/UI skills and digital product management skills to try and craft helpful resources for job seekers.
🗞️ Job Hunting Guides challenge me to organize my thoughts and articulate them in a clear, concise, and engaging way—at least, that’s what I hope I’m doing with this article!
👕 Merchandise design, planning, and marketing is a new challenge for me. As such, it’s opened new avenues for me to be creative while considering the logistics of physical goods.
Between tasks and achievements done during work and life, you’ll find more balance for yourself.
WAYS TO GET STARTED
Depending on what you want to do, there are many marketplaces and resources! Here is a short list of options:
Fiverr or UpWork to list your services. Maybe it’s writing, design, music, voice acting, marketing, or being a virtual assistant!
Etsy for handmade or vintage goods. It’s also an option for selling supplies or services to customize goods!
Gumroad is a great marketplace for digital downloads.
Printful and Printify are made-to-order printing and fulfillment services. For a small business of one like myself, it’s a great option for merch! 👀👇
