It’s Valentine’s Day this weekend so I thought I’d touch on a little lurrrve. Not your usual lurrrve in terms of relationships and stuff, but more about how you can love what you do. 

Whilst working my 9-5 job I was convinced that going freelance would be the answer to getting more time to do things I love.

Then I finally went freelance and realised that life just isn’t that simple. Yes, I have the power to go for a long lunch or go for a walk in the morning and start work at 11 instead of 9, but I’m still working a lot, you know, to pay the bills.

It’s not like I have all day every day to sit in my pyjamas and watch Netflix or spend six hours working on my novel because, well, these things don’t pay the bills. Regardless of whether you work 9-5 or are freelance and your own boss, I’ve found you still have to master the art of juggling work and the things you love.

The great thing for me is I love my job, so it’s kind of an extension of what I do in my spare time – only I have to do it even when I don’t feel like it otherwise I’m not eating for the month.

The bad thing about being freelance is that if I want to take some time off I don’t get paid. If I wanted to travel when I worked a 9-5, I could book time off and still get paid whilst I was gallivanting around cool places.

Now? Well, I have to work my ass off before I go to make up for lost working time or, alternatively, let my bank balance take a hit for that month. I could always work on the road, but I’m one of those people that wold rather be in the moment, enjoying the things on offer than stuck in my hotel room banging away at a laptop.

So it’s here that I’ve had to find the balance between work and the things I love. I’m definitely still learning (read: feeling blindly around in the dark), but I think I’ve finally started to figure it out.

Everyone has 24 hours in a day

Look, everyone has the same amount of hours in a day and we choose how we spend them. When I realised this and accepted it I became much more proactive and productive because, think about it, the most successful, inspiring people in the world still have the same 24 hours every day.

They don’t have a magic stopwatch, they just utilise their time in the best way possible.

If there’s something you really want to do, you’ll make time for it. When people say ‘oh, I don’t have time for it’, I immediately think they don’t really want to do it anyway.

When I was working a 9-5 job I would get home at 6pm and sit in front of the TV all evening because I thought I ‘didn’t have time’ to do anything else. WRONG. Now I work until 5 or 6 and then spend my evenings writing my novel, reading, doing yoga, and writing blog posts, and I love it (with a small dose of Netflix thrown in too because, well, because). When you’re doing things you love you instantly feel more motivated.

Try it: for a week, use your evenings to do what you love, whether it’s going out for dinner, cooking, sewing, reading, exercising, whatever – do it every evening and see how much more productive you are.

Decide what it is you love

One of the hardest (and most time-consuming) things in life is finding out what you enjoy doing and what you don’t enjoy. Sometimes I find myself wishing that I could sit on the sofa all day watching Netflix but, when I do eventually sit down to do that, I feel like I’d rather be doing something else – writing my blog, reading, whatever.

I know that I absolutely love travel because I get the characteristic clammy hands and dry, excited throat when I’m booking something and I feel down if I haven’t explored a new place in a long time. It’s the same when I think of a great idea for a blog post, or a way to tackle the tricky scene I’ve been trying to get past in my novel.

Think about the things that make you feel excited, that get your heart racing and your brain whirring, that you feel incomplete without doing.

Those are the things you love!

Prioritise the things you love

We prioritise a lot of things we don’t enjoy doing. But the reason we prioritise them? Because they’re necessary or we like the end result (not necessarily the action of doing it). For example, you might not like getting up early to go to work every day, but you enjoy getting your pay check at the end of the month. Or, you might not enjoy spending twenty minutes cleaning yourself in the morning, but you love feeling fresh as a daisy.

You see what I mean?

The things we prioritise DO make us feel good, just not always in the moment. So you’re already prioritising the things you love, you just need to expand it to include activities that make you feel great in the moment, too.

Set aside some time

Easier said than done, right? Time seems to slip through your fingers and then suddenly it’s time for bed and you haven’t managed to have any fun all day. Story of my life. Story of everyone’s life?

I try and set aside at least an hour every day to write, read, practice yoga, or go for a walk. When you think about it, an hour doesn’t seem like that long at all. Sixty short minutes. Set aside an hour in the morning or an hour when you get back from work to do something you enjoy. I guarantee that once that hour is up you’ll feel much happier and more motivated (tell me if I’m wrong!).

Do what you love and the money will follow?

You’ve probably heard numerous travel blogs and self-help sites bandying this quote around. I agree that if you love something enough there is a way to make money out of it (even if it’s not enough to live off), but what do you do before you start making money?

Doing the things you love is so, so important in making you feel happier, more motivated, and like you’re actually getting something out of life. But we also have to mix this in with work, earning money, and generally staying on top of things.

Finding a balance between the two is one of the hardest things you can do, so take it in tiny steps – a little bit each day – and find out what works for you and, more importantly, find what you love.

Yes, I quit my job to become a freelance writer which means I get to spend all day every day doing something I love, but this isn’t always possible. I know that. I’m not going to preach (hell, I’m one of those people who hate travel blogs that say you HAVE to quit your job to travel the world, blah blah blah).

Everyone has their own stories and own goals, so you just need to figure out what works for you. The best thing about it? There is no wrong answer!

I’m actually going to start a series on the blog next week about quitting (or not quitting) your job to travel. It definitely WON’T be a ‘you should quit your job or you won’t be happy’ kinda post, but more of a look at the practicalities and whether it’s right for you.

So, if you have any questions relating to that please leave a comment below and I’ll incorporate it into the series!

In the meantime, what do you love doing? How do you find the time to do the things you love? Any techniques you’d be willing to share?!