How are you progressing with your goals?
I’m sure you set some pretty big goals for the year, and I want to help you accomplish them; I think you can learn a little bit from my story of creating my virtual dream job. How did I accomplish my massive goals and create my dream job in just 12 months? Let me take you on a journey.
In December 2016, I hopped on a plane back to the US of A to spend the holidays with my family. A little discouraged and largely at a loss for my next steps, I felt a little like a dog going home with its tail between its legs. I had just been let go from my second Au Pair family . . .OK BYE.
But I needed money, and I kind of needed it quickly. What was I to do?
I knew I wanted to go back to Australia, but how could I do that and build a career?
I felt stuck. But not for long.
I turned to UpWork. If you haven’t heard of it or used it before, it’s a platform for freelancers to find work and connect with people who need their services. UpWork’s motto is “creating a world of work without limits,” which is exactly what the company has done.
UpWork has made virtual assistantship easy to jump into, but the company takes a large portion of your income (20%). Overall, the interface is easy to use, but there are a lot of junk or spam posts that you have to filter through to find the best opportunities. I wanted more. I wanted to have my own connections and make the money myself. Why was I giving money to this corporation if I didn’t have to?
Anyway, I digress. UpWork is how I started in virtual work. I found a few data entry jobs and even some solid virtual assistant work. I was a little surprised at just how good I was at finding and taking on this work, and I ended up making $2k+ each month with only 10 to 15 hours of work per week. THE DREAM, RIGHT?
Wrong!
I needed to plan out what I wanted to be doing. Being good at filling in Excel spreadsheets is a great skill, but it wasn’t what made me light up and wake up each morning excited to get busy working.
So, what was my passion? What would make me want to work each day?
I set up an Asana account and set forth planning my adventure. I utilized the skills I had developed as a VA setting up the processes for others to achieve their business goals and dreams in order to effectively prioritize and strategize my own path to success and business alignment with my passions. I looked at my established clients to develop an idea of the kind of people I want to work with and developed a strategy around those particular people and themes. This helped me focus my marketing efforts as well as my networking.
I knew that working with organizations and companies that were socially responsible, and getting back to supporting non-profit work, was where my passions truly lie. Once I established a few strategies of my own, I was able to appropriately move away from the clients who weren’t fulfilling those desires and get back to the aforementioned client avenues.
Your greatest dreams deserve to become reality.
However, they won’t come true by sitting on your laurels. You have to be willing to put in some upfront work of strategizing and planning along with a little elbow grease in order to get there.
Are you following a detailed plan for success to make your dream job a reality? What are your biggest goals to achieve by this time next year?
If you are ready to truly start making your dreams a reality I would love to chat with you.
Feel free to sign up now for a FREE Strategy Session with me!