BLOGTHE DAY JOB

by Kevin Preston | 19th December 2015

In 2014 the Universe presented me with an opportunity to quit my job. It was a job I’d been working at for over twelve years. Quitting was something I’d been thinking about for a few months. I’d meditated on leaving and managed to come up with a plan in my mind, a three year escape plan if you will. However, the Universe stepped in and offered me an alternative route thirty six months early. I started making excuses, ‘It’s too early’, ‘This isn’t part of the plan’, ‘I’m not ready yet’. Just some of the things I found myself saying. However, after much contemplation, and again meditation, I decided it was the fear talking and that now was as good a time as any to make a change.

I took the risk, and in 2014 I quit my job. Off I went, setting sail on a new adventure. Since that point the Universe has taken me on an epic journey of self discovery :) So much has happened in twelve months, it feels like I’ve lived a million lifetimes. My art has suffered, I’ll be the first to admit that, there’s been choices along the way that haven’t panned out as planned resulting in some pretty stormy waters. At times my ship’s been left shattered across the ocean, needing massive repairs, but I’ve always managed to adapt and stay focused.

I remember back in 2013 when I launched this site, “I’m going to buckle up and enjoy the ride,” I said. Even back then, my spidey senses were telling me that everything in my life was going to change. The week I quit my job I received a letter saying I’d been accepted to go see a gender therapist. Just one of many coincidences. I took a deep breath, having all this free time and enough money to cover my bills for months meant it was the perfect time to put all my focus into tackling my gender issues, but I also knew it would have an impact on my art and all the plans I had put in place.

Knowing how my gender is fused so closely with my art, it seemed like the right thing to do. I was prepared to sacrifice my art in the short term as I knew it was the right thing to do. As Robert Greene said in his book Mastery – The first move toward mastery is always inward – learning who you really are and reconnecting with that innate force.”

What I didn’t realise was just how deep the rabbit hole was going to go. Self acceptance was, and is, only the beginning.

Crazy coincidences, Sophie’s shopaholic spending sprees and family issues aside… Twelve months later the dust is finally beginning to settle, and things are slowly slotting into place. My life, my mindset, my art, my gender and also my job. The day job, are all syncing up. The day job is the most important piece of the puzzle. Time is way more important to me than money, which is one of the reasons I quit my job. I wanted to free up more time to pursue my passion, but there are still bills to be paid and so a day job was always part of the plan.

I’m a massive fan of the SeanWes podcast, the wisdom hosts Sean and Ben offer on that show is nothing short of life changing. I remember when I was thinking about quitting my job they ran multiple podcasts and blog posts about the day job. This is about a day job that will support you to allow you to grow your passion on the side, for people like me who are just starting out. It’s what Sean calls, ‘The Overlap Technique’.

I’m going to sprinkle in some quotes from Sean throughout this blog post, quotes that really made me think about the day job, but you should visit SeanWes.com to listen to the podcast, watch the videos and read the blogposts. They may change your life like they have mine.

“Your day job needs to be outside the industry of your passion.”
Sean McCabe

Why? To protect the passion. This was the one bit of advice that really hit home with me. Before hearing this, I thought your day job should be in the area of your passion. It’s your passion after all, why wouldn’t you want it to be your day job? Well, you shouldn’t have a day job that is using this same creative energy, as you’ll have none left for when you get home to start the proper work.

This was huge for me. I remember at the time thinking about getting a job related somehow to art. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew it was time for me to move on from my old job. I just thought it made sense to jump into an art related job. I was working full time, and nights, in an environment I no longer enjoyed being in. I wanted to get off nights so I could be fully alert during the day for art classes and as I value time more than money, I wanted to work less hours to free up time.

After hearing what Sean said, I started looking around and seeing people who had forced their passion into a day job too early and were now either stuck doing things just to get the bills covered, or didn’t have any energy left to create their own personal work. I didn’t want this, and so I realised the passion needed protecting at all costs. This didn’t mean the passion wouldn’t become the day job one day, it just meant you can’t force it. You have to let it grow naturally.

“There’s a very important nuance between being supported from your passion and using your passion to pay your bills.”
– Sean McCabe

I still didn’t know what to do. I needed to create a checklist of what I wanted from my day job. Sean had mentioned about looking at what you do when you procrastinate, as this could give you an idea of areas to base your day job around. I became self aware and noticed that when procrastinating, I’m normally cleaning my desk. Cleaning. For years and years I always thought cleaning would be a perfect job for me, looking back now, writing this blogpost, I realise the first summer jobs I had were actually cleaning! So maybe even back when I was sixteen I knew cleaning was for me. 

Since leaving University, I never acted on it as I thought people wouldn’t approve. Having studied computers at Uni I felt like I had to have a job related to computing. The events of the last twelve months, my acceptance of my feminine side, inadvertently allowed me to free myself from needing anyone’s approval for anything. I could do whatever I wanted now. I felt free.

In another of many coincidences since finding Art, Dave Crocker entered my life and offered me the opportunity to join the Plymouth Hoe Art Fair. I will forever be grateful to Dave Crocker for giving me the opportunity, I met so many nice, warm and talented people. I felt part of something epic and have nothing but fond memories of the art fair.

However, I soon realised that the art fair and gallery were beginning to distract me. I had no interest in selling my art. I know the difference between fear and instinct. Fear was the thing trying to convince me to stay in my old job. This feeling was different. This was instinct. I wasn’t selling because of fear, but because I knew I would have to compromise my vision to make it work.

“When are you going to start selling?”, everyone kept asking me this. In the end I almost started selling just because everyone else was. I started spending large amounts of time trying to work out how to start making money off my art. I came up with the idea of selling animal portraits. This isn’t my dream though, my dream is to capture femininity in my art. Capturing femininity will take time. Years. I started to hear Seans voice, “Protect the passion.”

Realising I was considering turning my passion into something that didn’t feel right, I decided it was time to reconsider everything. In the past I’ve been a people pleaser, this isn’t a good character trait when you’re an Artist as it can easily lead to you saying yes to things you shouldn’t be doing. This year I began to learn the importance of saying no. As Sean puts it

“You Have to Say No to a Lot of Good Things…
 …In Order to Be Able to Say Yes to a Lot of Great Things. This is one of the hardest lessons I’ve learned. Freedom comes from saying no. It’s hard at first, but with time you will gain more control over your life. Saying “no” is a practice.”
– Sean McCabe

It’s something I’m working on, saying no to things. When your habit has always been to say yes, it’s very hard to say no. It feels uncomfortable. Feels like you’re letting people down. The thing is, I see now that by saying yes to things you should be saying no to, you’ll most likely end up letting them down even more so in the future.

SO WHAT WAS THE CRITERIA FOR MY PERFECT DAY JOB?

  • It needed to be an early morning job (I was struggling to get out of bed early when not working, so I figured having an early start would force me out of bed and free up the rest of the day)
  • It needed to afford me at least 8 hours a day to pursue my passion
  • It needed to play to my strengths of being an introvert, so I wanted to deal with as few people as possible
  • It needed to be something I enjoyed
  • It needed to cover the bills
  • It needed to be something that didn’t mentally drain me
  • It needed to be a job that I didn’t take home with me

The perfect day job for me has turned out to be cleaning. I’ve always enjoyed cleaning, people don’t seem to believe or understand, but I find it massively satisfying to clean. Converting a mess into something shiny I find good for the soul. In a lot of ways, cleaning is like drawing. You have a vision of what you want to achieve, you break it down into smaller more manageable tasks, and than you take action. One small task at a time until the whole thing is finished. Than you sit back and admire your work. Your vision having come to life :)

This job allows me the freedom of being left to my own devices, dealing with people every day so I can continue to practice my social skills, but not being forced into long conversations that drain me. I’m free to just get on with my job. It covers my bills. A nice 5:30 am start, meaning I’m back home and finished by 11:30 am and so have over eight hours to study, draw and work on the website.

“The right day job will charge you for your passion.
The wrong one will drain you and deplete the right kind of energy you need.”
– Sean McCabe

Most importantly, the job doesn’t drain me. I can turn up for work and almost switch off, go on autopilot, freeing my mind to go off wherever it wants and come up with ideas. For instance, I redesigned the whole backend of this website while ‘working’. I plotted it all out in my head, than rushed home and put it into place. When I get home from work I’m fired up and full of energy, despite the early starts. This is maybe my most favourite thing as I get home from work and feel like I still have the whole day to work, plus I have the flexibility to attend art classes, life drawing sessions and any other art related things that happen during the day.

A nice little extra of this job is how much I feel valued. I look back at my old job and see how I was simple a number. I got paid very well, but they didn’t bring the best out of any of us back there. In this cleaning job I have people constantly thanking me for the job I’m doing. I even had one old bloke hand me a five pound note the other day, “This is for the great job you’re doing for us,” he said. I ran up the road after him and didn’t take his money, but little comments like that happen all the time and leave me feeling like I’m actually doing something of worth. I’m enjoying my job and my managers and the public appreciate and value what I’m doing. Sometimes, it doesn’t even feel like work, that’s how much I love cleaning.

Art has helped me so much. Quitting my old job was hard, it took a lot of courage, but it was courage that I found via art. Art has thought me that you need to take risks in life. Everything good in my life has come about thanks to taking risks and thanks to art. Some risks haven’t worked out as planned, but they’ve all lead to other things that have, like a spiders web everything seems to be so beautifully connected.

It’s been a crazy year where at times I’ve lost focus and made some bad choices, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I’m already getting back to it. Back to the basics. Back to studying. Back to daily sketches. Back to being focused on maximising every available second in my quest to become the best artist I can possibly be. Sophie hasn’t gone anywhere either, she’s quite contently sitting with her legs crossed, playing with her heels as she waits for her time to shine. She still has a massive part to play, but I’m finally feeling like I can focus on my art again. All thanks to the day job.

.

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“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”
Thomas Merton

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