Your job is not per­fect. Me nei­ther. We have hid­den gifts you and I.

First instinct, espe­cially in the heady days of early Jan­u­ary, is to re-evaluate and con­sider mas­sive life changes.

Have we in fact missed our call­ing? In a word: yes. But it’s an eas­ier fix than you might think.

Have you ever heard the expres­sion: “When you’re doing what you really love, it doesn’t feel like a job?” Do you know why this is true? It’s because when you’re doing what you really love you prob­a­bly aren’t at work. Day jobs are some­times less-than-totally ful­fill­ing. They don’t nor­mally appre­ci­ate or hon­our our full great­ness. They nor­mally can’t. (Because that’s not their job).They are not designed with us in mind, but rather with our clients in mind. But their imper­fec­tion doesn’t mean they are wrong for us. We accept their imper­fec­tions as they accept ours. And that’s not bad.

Non-jobs are an anti­dote to less-than-completely-fulfilling careers. They offer a ful­fill­ing ‘third place’. A place, that is not our job and not our home-life, where we grow in the ways we crave.

If you want a non-job, it’s yours. All who apply (them­selves) can have one.

Maybe you’re a writer, deep down. Or you really enjoy paint­ing. Maybe you’re a hilar­i­ous dancer with a call­ing for YouTube. What­ever it is you have to share, what­ever you’ve been wait­ing for, the oppor­tu­nity to show off, put that into your non-job. Make it part of your daily life.

5 Steps to Non-Job Success

1. We can change what we do, but we can’t change what we ENJOY doing. The non-job is for us, not for credit. So do some­thing fun, some­thing enjoy­able, some­thing that takes you to a flow-state.
2. You prob­a­bly already know what your non-job should be, so give it some of your time. Make it your prac­tice, your cre­ative prac­tice. From now on, con­sider your­self a painter or dancer, as much as a lawyer, or mar­keter of mag­a­zine ads. We are artists as long as we practice.
3. Break some rules. Exper­i­ment. Enjoy it. Dis­cover how you like to work, when you’re non-jobbing.
4. Gather evi­dence of your art and share it. Again, not for the credit, but because our crafts have mean­ing in them and mean­ing is for shar­ing. Shar­ing mean­ing is always a gift, regard­less of how much it is appre­ci­ated. And it feels good to give gifts. So sell it on Etsy. Start a pho­tog­ra­phy blog. Wrap it for Valentine’s Day. Some­thing. Get it out there.
5. Finally, be grate­ful about it. Now that you’re a suc­cess­ful dancer, who’s work has been viewed by lit­er­ally tens of peo­ple around the world, find a way to encour­age oth­ers. Be involved in your new com­mu­nity. Say some­thing to your tribe about how you work. Explain your crazy moves. This helps to build com­mu­nity around you and that keeps you going.

If you’re lucky, even­tu­ally, maybe your non-job will pay the bills too. But that can take years. In the mean time, you don’t need to be starv­ing to be an artist.

So, this year, take time for your non-job. Take time to develop a new cre­ative prac­tice. It’s a great way to put into your life what­ever it is that you’re miss­ing: to make sense of the world, gen­er­ate com­mu­nity, break rules, feel suc­cess­ful, express your­self, explore, to feel an increas­ing sense of mas­tery, to experiment.

And it feels good too.

(Today’s bril­liant pho­tos are care of this per­son and this person).