Following Your Passion Could Leave You Broke: 5 Powerful Tools To See If Your Passion Is Worth Pursuing
++
If you’re a health and fitness pro, passion likely led you here. But you might be curious if you can really have a job you love and make ends meet. This article will share 5 tools you can use to find out, for certain, if your passion can feed you (and your family).
++
Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life
Sounds appealing, right?
If you’re like most health and fitness professionals, you’ve likely heard that sentiment countless times. It’s printed on motivational posters, bumper stickers, and new-age passion planners. It’s even touted by people on social media who are living their “best lives.”
But does this piece of advice even ring true?
Will chasing your passion make your life feel you’re dancing in the sunshine, drinking an Orange Mocha Frappuccino, day in and day out?
We doubt it.
It’s perfectly normal to love your job and simultaneously hate it
At least, parts of it.
No matter what career you choose, there are going to be some tasks that you’ll have to do some of the time, that you’re not going to love.
Even if you love coaching and you work with clients, helping them change – or maybe even save – their lives, there will be administrative tasks that go along with it that may not be your cup of tea.
Just because you feel stressed, overwhelmed, and question your path some of the time, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re in the wrong line of work.
You’re a human being. And because of that, you will feel stressed now and then.
And just because you dislike your career – on some days – it doesn’t mean that things have to change or that you’d be happier elsewhere.
Businesses require more than passion
While important, passion is just one part of the equation.
To run a successful health & fitness business that actually makes money, you need:
- A product or service
- People who are willing to pay for it
- A way to get paid
If you have a group of prospects, but nothing to sell, you don’t have a business.
If you have something to sell, but no one is willing to buy it, you don’t have a business.
If you have a product or service and you have people who are willing to buy it, yet you don’t have a clear and easy way for people to pay you, you still don’t have a business.
People won’t always pay you for your passion
If you’re passionate about what you’re doing, the hard work will be easier to do.
But not every passion – or hobby – is worth paying for.
If, for example, you like traveling and eating pizza, people may not pay you to do that. But if you find a group of people who want to learn – and are willing to pay – to travel and eat pizza, you might.
(And if you find those people, you can travel and eat more pizza, to “practice what you preach.” Lucky you.)
It’s all about finding the right kind of product or service for the right group of people.
Your passion (and skills) must match what your target market wants (and is willing to pay for). Only then, do you have a true opportunity.
Save time and money
People spend years of their precious lives chasing the wrong thing. Pouring all of their time and energy into projects – and businesses – that never scale. Giving the best of themselves to something that may not ever work.
And the more time, effort, money and resources that are invested, the harder it is to walk away.
We see this with health & fitness professionals all of the time. They commit themselves to their coaching business, and the only option they give themselves when they don’t get enough clients to sustain their lifestyle is to try harder rather than to try something different.
While no tool, resource, can shield you from failure in its entirety, taking a thoughtful approach can help mitigate your risk.
Let’s dive in.
5 Tools To Quickly Test If Your Passion Is Worth Pursuing
We’ll be walking you through 5 tools, one by one.
If you want to take your learning and put it into practice, you can download your FREE Passion-Opportunity Workbook for Health & Fitness Pros here.
After you have your copy, you can follow along.
Tool #1:
The Passion-Opportunity Matrix
Health & fitness professionals are some of the most passionate people we’ve ever met. If you’re like the majority, you’re a multifaceted human being with multifaceted passions and interests.
The key here is to find the passion of yours that best aligns with your skills, that can be used to solve a problem in the marketplace.
Fill out the Passion-Opportunity Matrix to highlight the passions – and the opportunities – that are worth pursuing in a monetary fashion.
Passion-Opportunity Matrix for Health & Fitness Pros
You can download your free Passion-Opportunity Workbook For Health & Fitness Pros here.
Here’s an example of what this might look like:
Fatima’s Passion-Opportunity Matrix
Once you’ve found something that marries your passion with your skills and addresses a real problem in the market that you can take advantage of, we recommend diving deeper into one of your options (for now), and test it using the Market-Viability Litmus Test below.
Tool #2:
Market-Viability Litmus Test
As stated earlier, all successful, profit-generating health & fitness businesses are comprised of three things:
- A product or service
- People who are willing to pay for it
- A way to get paid
So, a very quick test you can do to check the viability of your passion-based business is to turn the above criteria into questions and ask yourself:
- Does my idea/business have an obvious product or service?
- Do I know people who are willing to buy it? If not, do I know where to find them?
- Do I have a way to get paid?
If you answered “no” to any of the above questions, go back to the drawing board. Because, quite simply, you don’t have a business.
If you answered “yes” to each question, proceed to the next tool.
Tool #3:
Reality Check Checklist
After you’ve used the above questions to check if there’s the potential for a viable business model, the next step is to:
- Ask yourself a series of questions (to see if you even want to pursue your passion as a business), and
- Ask the “market” a series of questions (to see if you can make enough money to live).
We put together a Reality Check Checklist to help you do just that.
You can download your free Reality Check Checklist – along with all of the other tools listed in this article – here.
If you’d love to pursue your passion, even if it meant doing the nitty gritty work, you might be onto something. But only if enough people are ready and willing to pay you for what you offer.
If both are true, fill out the below.
Tool #4:
The Business Opportunity Scorecard
At this point, you might have one, two, or several passions that you’re interested in pursuing as a business.
If you’re struggling to decide between the good opportunities and the great one that is worth pursuing now, we recommend using The Business Opportunity Scorecard.
Here’s how it works.
Step 1:
Score each of your ideas using key criteria.
For each potential option you’re looking to pursue, rank it on a scale from 1-5 in the following categories:
Impact:
How would I rate the impact this idea has on my customers, my business, and the world?
1 = no impact
5 = high impact
Effort:
How much time and energy will it take to pull this off?
1 = immense effort
5 = low effort
Profitability:
Relative to my other options, how much potential profit can I generate?
1 = no profit
5 = high profit
Passion:
How much energy does this project give me?
1 = drains me
5 = excites me
Purpose:
How well does this align with the cause, belief, or mission that motivates me?
1 = no alignment
5 = perfect alignment
(If you haven’t quite nailed your purpose yet, we’ve outlined a step-by-step process for you to define yours here.)
Unique Abilities:
How much will I be able to do the things that you are – or have the potential to be – world class at, I really enjoy doing, and I can make a big difference with, if I use them?
1 = no time spent in unique abilities
5 = majority of time spent in unique abilities
(If you want to define your unique abilities, check out our 4-step process here.)
Values:
How well does this opportunity match-up with the guiding principles I feel proud to live out?
1 = My daily actions will take me further away from the things that matter most to me
5 = My daily actions match my priorities
(If you want support clearly defining your values, check out this 6-step process.)
Step 2:
Calculate The Total Score For Each Option
Add up all the scores that you gave for each criteria and place it in the “Total” column.
Step 3:
Rank Your Options
Looking at your total column, rank each of your options, with your highest score receiving 1st place, and your lowest score receiving last place.
Typically we recommend taking on only one idea at a time, to increase your level of focus. Unless you have the time and energy required to do more than one option well, focus on your highest ranking option. You can always circle back and try something different later on.
Here’s what a filled out Business Opportunity Scorecard might look like.
Tool #5:
Lean Canvas For Health & Fitness Pros
The next step is to test your idea – and your assumptions – in the real world, and gather key information about your:
- Customers (who they are + the problems they’re really trying to solve),
- Offering (how you can solve your clients top 3 problems),
- Channels (and what you’ll do to reach more customers),
- Existing solutions + competitors (and how you’ll stand out from the crowd),
- Key metrics (and how you’ll know if you’re succeeding or not),
- Cost structure (so you’ll know what you need to charge), and
- Revenue streams (how you’ll bring in money and manage your cash flow).
The best way to do this is by filling out a Lean Canvas, or a one-page business plan, for your passion-based business.
Here’s an example of a completed Lean Canvas for a health & fitness business that helps new mom’s get active, eat better, and enhance their confidence.
While the Lean Canvas is beyond the scope of this article, you can download a FREE Lean Canvas for Health & Fitness Pros here.
In it, you’ll find a step-by-step process that will show you exactly what you need to do to map out your business and take action, with confidence.
Plus, we’ve also included a blank Lean Canvas for Health & Fitness Pros in our Passion-Opportunity Workbook, that goes along with this article.
What to do next
After you’ve chosen what opportunity you’d like to pursue, take action.
Test your idea in the real world to see if:
- You actually like doing what you thought you’d like doing,
- Customers actually pay for what you thought they’d pay for, and
- There’s anything you might change, based on what you’ve learned.
Interacting with your customers, experimenting , and refining your plans will get you closer and closer to where you’re meant to be.
Want to learn more?
Then check out Dr John Berardi’s one-of-a-kind book – winner of the 2021 Axiom Business Book of the Year – Change Maker: Turn Your Passion For Health and Fitness into a Powerful Purpose and a Wildly Successful Career.
The health and fitness industry is huge, highly competitive, and often confusing to navigate. Dr. Berardi helps you make sense of the chaos, laying out a clear roadmap to help you achieve both personal and professional success.