Transitioning to Doing What You Love – Tip #1: Build a Warchest

Let’s say you are currently unhappy at your present job or career path in general, and are looking for a way to move into doing what you love. Let’s say that you’ve downloaded my free eBook “The Passion Project” and you’ve identified what your true inspiration in life is, but you’re not sure where to go next.

Perhaps your current job is not what you love doing but it pays the bills and your personal circumstances don’t allow you to just get up and quit tomorrow. What should you do then?

Well, I’ve already outlined part of the process in my article “Making the Transition to Doing What You Love for a Living”, but today I’d like to offer a tip to help with the transition.

While you’re still at your current job, begin building a Warchest. What’s a Warchest? Imagine a Warchest like a medieval chest filled with gold coins. In reality it’s probably not going to be a physical chest you keep coins in, but rather a bank account or an investment that you immediately start putting money towards.

This particular account is not going to be used for retirement, or to save up for a new toy, or to pay off some debt you have or whatnot. Its sole purpose is to get your out of your current job into doing what you love. Basically, you can either setup a separate bank account, or some form of daily interest money market account, or anything that you can easily add money into.

Once you’ve setup this account, begin to look for ways you can save money on everything you do and put the difference into your Warchest.

Some ways to fund your Warchest:

• Ask for cash or gift-cards for anyone getting you a present. Put cash into your Warchest, and find a way to sell your gift cards for cash and put that cash into your Warchest. Don’t tell people what you’re doing with the money.
• Transfer some money on pay day into your Warchest account. Don’t wait to see what you’ve got left over at the end of the money. Make your Warchest account a priority.
• Take on some side-jobs part time that you might not normally want to do. Remember making money as a kid shoveling drive ways? You might not want to go that far, but I’m sure you can find some odd jobs here and there if you know the funds from that job are going towards your Warchest.
• Do what you need to do at work to get a raise, then put all raise money into the Warchest, instead of increasing your standard of living.
• Sell some stuff on eBay and put the money into your Warchest.
• Drop your budget for other people’s gifts by 10-20%. They won’t notice. Instead of spending $50 on a gift for someone, spend $45, and put $5 into your Warchest. Or make them a card instead of spending $5 for a birthday card.

What’s the point of the Warchest? Well, it’s kind of a transition tool. Firstly, it allows you to take action RIGHT NOW towards moving closer towards doing what you love. Even if you don’t have any money right now, it doesn’t cost any money to open up an account with most financial institutions. Taking an action step right now will help to get your mind to accept the fact that you are serious about this.

Don’t be discouraged that you can only save a little bit right now. As you begin building your Warchest, your savings will grow quicker and quicker. Continue to do all the other things you want to do to make the transition towards doing what you love, but allow this Warchest to grow in the background.

The main purpose of your Warchest is to provide you with some funding during your transition towards doing what you love. Let’s say that you were going to go to your boss and quit your job tomorrow. Would you rather do that if you have $0 in the bank or $10,000? What if you had a Warchest with $50k in it? Would it be easier to make the jump towards doing what you love?

Most people quit their jobs first and then start looking for ways to cut their expenses, and to find alternate sources of income while they build their new career or business. The Warchest idea is to start doing this BEFORE you quit your job.

Let’s say that you’re currently making $40k per year at a job and you want to transition to a new career that you love but you’ll be making $30k per year at the most for the first few years in your new career so you’ll have to cut down your expenses after the switch. Why not start cutting back now? Why not arrange your life as if you already made the switch, and put the extra money into your Warchest account?

Final Note

Living month to month, paycheck to paycheck is a common occurrence. Especially if we don’t love what we do, we kind of just survive month to month and use any extra money we make at our jobs to buy toys and material possessions to try to make ourselves feel better. You may have even started to try saving some money for retirement or some other purchase without any luck. A Warchest is different. It’s easier to save for because it’s your ticket to freedom, it’s your ticket towards saving for starting your new business or to pay for schooling towards your new career.

Even if you haven’t figured out what you want to do with your life yet, why not start a Warchest account right now in anticipation of the day when you do figure out what you want to do with your life.

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