How Switching Majors Changed My Life…
So I have a confession to make…
I’m not much of a fan of the notion to follow your passion.
It’s a term that is passed around highly too often.
Passion can skew your perspective if you don’t understand how to properly implement the idea behind it.
I became a victim of this term in my second semester of freshman year of college.
I initially began my studies as mechanical engineer and as I sat through the classes I began to ask myself…
“why am I here? “
It felt as if I wasn’t learning anything in the classes and there seemed to be no purpose of learning this material.
This is a perfect setup for someone searching for meaning behind why they are doing something.
Then I had an english professor and that’s when it all began.
He showed us the movie the matrix and we studied that movie in depth.
Now I had seen the movie before, but the first time I seen it it made no sense and the only part I could remember was when NEO dodged the bullets, if that was even in the first one, forgive me matrix fans.
However this time watching it, it all clicked.
We were living in the matrix just going along with what society tells us and not following our passion.
There it was, the word that would change everything to what I am today.
I then began to look into what I enjoyed doing and I enjoy cartoons and I like to draw.
So naturally that led me to switching my major to art, right?
I think we forget one thing about following a passion that seems to get overlooked.
It requires HARD WORK!
But that goes for anything right?
Sometimes this hard work can not payoff especially if you don’t have a plan.
I didn’t know that and I went into my new major as I “matriculated” through school.
I find some words are funny to use for simple words as went through, but words are powerful, anyhow I digress.
I was in the same place because I had no idea what I was gonna do…
STILL.
I felt as if following my passion let me down.
I had no plan on how to get a job after I graduated regardless of my major.
There was one thing I did not understand before going into any of this…
Market Research.
Research period is really important to me if you read me last post I talk all about it.
If I did some market research I could see what jobs and skills was in demand and what people were looking for.
I could conduct a plan to prepare myself for a career.
School does not prepare you for anything in life, let alone the “real world”.
Unfortunately I didn’t learn this until after I graduated school and was left to myself.
As I started to research and look into the next steps to take I noticed a trend in the successful people.
Whether they were successful in school or in business, the successful men and women were self initiators or had mentors to guide them along the way.
Their education was sought after, self taught, or passed down from an experienced veteran of the field or industry.
It was then when my education truly began to take place.
I began to read books and study what people, or the market, was looking for and developing those skills and plans were my guide to help me achieve my goals.
There were two books that actually put the idea of passion into true perspective for me.
“Grit” by Angela Duckworth and “So Good They Cant Ignore You” by Cal Newport.
Angela proposes the idea that the ones who are successful have the innate ability called “grit” of a growth mindset to fight and continue to learn until they reach a goal that may seem unattainable.
Cal Newport crushes the idea of passion on its head and says passion can be gained through a process called “deliberate practice”.
This “deliberate practice” is applied to one specific skill to one becomes so good that their skills become a demand from others for you.
Cal Newport calls this “career collateral” and when your skills, or you, become hard to replace you then have leverage over your life and career.
After diving so deep into a skill through “deliberate practice” you can then develop a passion for your skill.
Ironically both authors mention this which led me to specializing in one specific thing…
Coding.
Now I am here.
I have learned to focus on learning code, researching a plan, and getting a new job which catapulted me into a new life.
Now I’m working to build a business around the simple idea of coding and life preparation skills.
I guess you can say changing majors even through all my hardships and frustrations had its pros after all.
However, as I continued to self educate myself and study the market, I did learn something else about myself.
I discovered I like to know the why and how behind things.
Meaning I want to know how something works. Some people call it reverse engineering
So I guess I am an engineer at heart.
And as I continued to study and research life and business there is one underlying skill that I see helps through them all…
Marketing.
Whether it’s yourself or a product, marketing is the key ingredient anyone needs to promote anything.
This is even more possible through the internet.
Anyone can sell almost anything now because they found a market for it.
Yet there are specific things why some people are more successful than others and that is why I am building my business.
This project is to help people, specifically young developers, to become marketable in order to create a better life full of space and opportunity.
So don’t just get caught up in the idea of follow your passion, but be sure you do your research and create a plan so you can turn your passion into profits.
If you found this article resonates with you, then be sure to follow me as I continue to build a business from my learned lessons and as I share what can hopefully help you out in life.
If you want to checkout the books I mentioned earlier that changed my life you can check them out below.
these are affiliate links as a disclaimer.
👉 Get Grit Here
