Susan loves clothes. Before stepping out of the house, she carefully matches her clothing and accessories to make sure she looks fantastic before stepping out the door. People always compliment her on her clothing style, and friends come to her for fashion advice.
In her spare time, Susan looks at fashion magazines and checks out videos and pictures of her favorite celebrities, seeing what trends are popular and what would look good.
While sitting down at her desk at work, Susan starts daydreaming a bit and wonders if there is some way that she could turn this interest into a full-time gig.
I'll present two different versions of Susan here:
As Susan sips her coffee and gazes at the window, her thoughts run wild with the possibilities as she thinks of fame, fortune and clothes. Certainly, her friends flock to her for fashion advice, so they must value what she has to say about the topic.
As she fondly remembers their get-togethers, she gets all excited. But then her mental gear shifts as she imagines asking them to pay. The idea begins to dim. She knows they would never actually pay her, so she mentally crosses that off the list.
People tell her that if she loves fashion, she should go be a fashion designer. Susan thinks of all the famous fashion designers she follows and how she would love to be one of them.
But then, how would she even do that? She has no credentials, and is working in a field completely unrelated to fashion. Susan would have to brush off her resume and somehow convince someone in the fashion industry that she really has what it takes to succeed in fashion.
The thought is way too taxing on her. A stack of papers lands on her desk and she gets back to her work, tossing the whole idea out. The 5 minute daydreaming time is over.
Sassy Susan considers the same possibilities as Stubborn Susan. She gets excited about the whole idea too. However, rather than crossing off the entire idea altogether, she decides that in her spare time she'll do some more research on the area.
Susan knows someone who was obsessed (and still is) with putting together computer parts. Now, her friend runs a computer business with a few employees. Perhaps it would be a good idea to talk to her friend.
At home, Susan does some research online about fashion design. While the usual topics come up, such as fashion designers in the industry, there are also some interesting roles that she hadn't thought of before, such as fashion contributors and personal consultants for specific niches, such as catering towards professionals in an industry.
Susan writes down the possibilities as food for thought to
consider and also crafts
an email to send to her friend.
Stubborn Susan and Sassy Susan are the same people. The
difference between them is that
they took two very different approaches. Stubborn Susan hit a
mental roadblock, threw her hands up in the air in frustration, and
crossed the idea off altogether after thinking of a few
possibilities.
Sassy Susan, however, doesn't just stop at thinking of the most obvious possibilities. Rather than just giving up at the first roadblock, she also looks at what other people outside of her interest currently do. Sassy Susan thinks openly about a variety of topics and how they might apply to her.
Another thing Sassy Susan does is look externally for answers, rather than just sit there and think. Remember how I mentioned that your passion doesn't "fall from the sky?" It doesn't just land out of thin air, either.