Last week, I asked why so many dream jobs feel like traps, and why making our work our whole identity can leave us feeling stuck. This week, I’m tackling the follow-up question: what’s the alternative? 

I’m going to share a quick framework with you that, looking back, has opened just about every door for me in this beautiful, adventurous life.

It’s a big ol’ middle finger to the “do what you love” narrative, but I do everything backwards when it comes to conventional wisdom (bought a house with my boyfriend of 6 months, but we’re married now, so it’s cool!), so it shouldn’t surprise you that my life-identity-career advice is upside-down too.

I’m calling it the passion-community-income flywheel (accepting better names—the copywriter in me is screaming).

Here’s how it works:

When you invest in your passions (the things that light you up), you build community (not in the networking or social media sense, but real, values-based connections), and the stronger your community gets, the more pathways you create for generating income (because your community becomes your best endorsement).

The magic happens when you figure out how to monetize your skills in a way that is worthwhile, engaging, and enables you to do more of what you love.

Here’s a personal example:

When I started looking for jobs again after 10 years of working for myself, I gave myself permission to go in a completely different direction with three non-negotiables: allow me to flex my creative muscles, cover my financial needs, and leave room for powder days and ILLA.

I found that job (!!) within an industry I had zero experience in. That shift enabled me to do more of what I love (dirt biking + snowmobiling) and build a community around it (via weekly women’s dirt bike and snowmobile rides). And the skills I sharpened while organizing these rides became the foundation for ILLA Adventures, the most successful thing ILLA has ever done since launching four years ago.

I optimized for joy—the income was a byproduct.

The beauty of a flywheel is that you can come into the cycle at any point, and giving energy to one thing helps propel all the others. The cycle doesn’t complete—it gets momentum.

So if you're feeling stuck, I’d encourage you to focus on doing more of what you love for the pure enjoyment of it, finding your people, and asking yourself what kind of job gives you the money, schedule, or environment you actually need to make doing the fun/important stuff easier.

Because I’m not sure the goal should be to love your work. Find work you can respect — and save the love for something no one can invoice.

xx Tana

PS — Questions? Want to talk this through? Stay tuned — my next email has an invitation to my free Real Talk Roundtable, and you won't want to miss it.