Turning Your Hobby into A Career - What You Need to Know

There is no denying that having a good hobby can be a great stress reliever. It is also a great way to boost your career. It shows you have determination and passion for seeing things through and a passion for life outside work, along with developing transferable skills from different areas of your life.

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Many hobbies are transferable into careers, and for many people, after some time, the next logical step for them is to devote more time to their hobby and consider making a full-time career from it. However, some hobbies can end up being more lucrative than there, and some industries have become saturated, meaning there is too much competition to sustain growth potential and success.

How do you approach turning a hobby into a career?

Identify Your Skills

It might not be that your hobby can directly lead to a new career. Instead, it could be your skills learned from your hobby that kick starts a new career path. For example, if you have a passion for drawing, you can use this creativity for many careers or side hustles. From training as a tattoo artist, cake decorator, graphic designer, there are a plethora of different jobs in the arts that can be explored simply from a love of drawing.

What Type of Business Do You Want

You need to know exactly what you expect from this new career move and how you will need it to fit into your life. Some careers require you to undergo further training to expand your skills and create your own business.

Decide if you want to work from home or if you need to find a location to develop your business and give you a base to work from.

Assess if you need it to be a full-time venture or if you would prefer to work part-time around your current employment too, so you can be realistic about how much time you have to dedicate to pursuing this path.

How Much Will It Cost?

Setting up most businesses comes at a cost, and upscaling a hobby to a career is no different. Even if you can work from home, you will still need supplies to keep up with demand. Make sure you check out any licenses you need to operate legally. There will be national and state requirements depending on your business. For example, going back to training as a tattoo artist, some states require you to be legally trained and qualified; others require the shop to be registered. Then you need to adhere to OSHA guidelines to keep the premises and clientele safe and invest in the latest tools and technology along with tattoo gloves to ensure hygiene and standards are maintained at all times.

Tax 

You will also need to make sure anything you earn is declared to the IRS to ensure you don't receive any fines or sanctions due to not reporting your income. Make sure you keep all the relevant paperwork to support your new venture as you move your hobby from something you do for enjoyment to a new and reliable income stream.

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