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As I mentioned last week, I’ve been offered and have accepted a paid writing position. (By the way, today is the final day of the Community Experiment. Any results to report? Email or comment to let me know!) I’m extremely excited about this opportunity, and I absolutely cannot wait until the administrative boxes have all been checked and I can get started with the actual writing. It feels so good to know that I’ll be getting paid to do something I love!

Even though getting paid to write has been a goal of mine for YEARS, I might not have been as excited about this opportunity if it had arisen a year ago. As a matter of fact, I might have walked away from it. Why on earth, you may rightly ask, would I have been anything less than thrilled about a paid writing opportunity? What possible reason would I have had for ignoring it or turning it down?
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Image from http://www.eteamz.com/fcrogue/images/goals.jpg.

There’s a ton of great literature out there on how to set goals. The SMART technique tells us that goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. Other sources advise that goals should be phrased as positive statements (”I will eat healthy foods” vs. “I will quit eating junk food”), and pretty much everyone suggests that we write down our goals to formalize them. This is all great advice, but you could develop and write out the SMARTest goal imaginable and still be missing a very important step: choosing a goal that inspires passion.
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Ladies (and gents, if you’re out there), prepare to have your mind blown…

Do you remember the Community Experiment I started on July 1? The idea was that I (and any of you who played along) would set an intention to achieve something by July 31. At the end of the month, we’d check in and see what had manifested in our lives in response to that intention. I thought about setting an intention to manifest $1 million…

Image from http://www.millionaire500.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/milliondollardreaming.jpg

…but I decided to stick with something more realistic and believable. My intention was to secure a paid writing assignment unrelated to my full-time job by July 31, 2008.

Funny story.
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Migrant worker becomes brain surgeon…

Um, yeah.

So I can totally write that book, and you can finish your bachelor’s, or run that marathon, or lose that baby weight, or become a certified coach, or start your own business, or… I don’t know, graduate from HARVARD and BECOME ONE OF THE COUNTRY’S TOP BRAIN SURGEONS when you live in a car and barely speak English.

Seriously.

So inspiring!

If you ask the experts (go ahead, consult the Interweb–I’ll wait), one of the keys to true happiness is to find something you’re passionate about and DO IT. The best case scenario would be to translate your passion into a career, but that doesn’t always work. Some people feel that turning a passion into a job might kill the magic, so to speak. Some people are passionate about something that isn’t easy to turn into a paid gig. For instance, I’m very passionate about running, but I’m fairly confident that no one’s going to pay me to do it. Regardless of whether your passion brings you a paycheck, you still need something in your life that lights your proverbial fire.

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