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Use Your Summer Vacation to Start Working at What You Love

Written by: Valerie Young

Article Overview: Summertime may not be the endless carefree season it was when you were a kid, but it's still a great time to jumpstart your dream of working at what you love. Here are three ways to use your summer vacation to grow a dream...

Use Your Summer Vacation to Start Working at What You Love

Remember writing those "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" essays way back when?

Summertime may not be the endless carefree season it was when you were a kid, but it's still a great time to jumpstart your dream of working at what you love.

Here are three ways to use your summer vacation to grow a dream:

1. Become a Dream Detective Imagine yourself a Dream Detective... someone who has an uncanny nose for scoping out unique business ventures. Like any good detective, you'll want to take lots and lots of notes. Whether your vacation plans take you to the beach, the mountains, or the city, make sure to pack a small notebook along with the sunscreen and maps. But this isn't any old notebook... it's your Dream Notebook!

The idea is to use your Dream Notebook to capture as many cool business ideas as possible. If you're traveling with kids you might even want to enlist their help by making a game of it. Maybe you'll spy an interesting business in the airport terminal or along the roadside. Or perhaps you'll find an existing business that's come up with a unique income stream, like an outdoor cafe that, for a fee, will walk patron's dogs while they dine.

If the business itself is nothing new, but they're using some neat marketing tactic to get customers in the door, add the marketing idea to your list as well. For example, I read about a CPA who partnered with a hotel to offer weekend guests a completed tax return by checkout. Two unlikely business partners who profited from a creative idea.

The purpose of capturing cool business and marketing ideas is to shift your thinking away from the more limiting idea of "job" to the more option-expanding concept of "livelihood." But that's not all. Even if you have no interest in starting your own soft-serve ice cream shop/kids bookstore (with a fun hand-washing area dividing the two,

of course), a summer camp for Star Wars fans, or an antique stove repair business, just by paying attention to the wonderfully vast number of ways there are to make a living without a j-o-b can help fuel your own creative thinking.

2. Use The Longer Days To Start Working On Your Dream Even though there's still only 24 hours in a day, the extra hours of sunlight somehow make the day feel longer. Use the "extra" time to start actively working on your dream. For example...

If you still don't know what you want to be "when you grow up," read a book about tapping into your true calling.

If you're in the exploring stage, consider taking an adult education course through your local college. I did a random search for courses and found such intriguing topics as How to Write and Sell Movie Treatments, Leather Bookbinding, and Opening Your Own Bed & Breakfast.

If you have a business idea in mind, you could spend the time researching your business, building your website, or working on your marketing plan. The point is to find a way to shine some of that extra sunlight onto your dreams.

3. Invest in Your Dream One way to invest in your dream is to start spending less and saving more. If you need to save money to put toward your new home office or to purchase inventory, consider vacationing at home and stashing away the money you would have spent on a costly vacation into your "dream fund."

The other way to invest in your dream is to make a conscious decision to spend money in the service of your dream. Sometimes the smartest (and quickest) way to start working at what you love is to invest in the skills, training, experiences, materials, or other resources you'll need to launch your dream.

Coleman Cox asks, "Now that it's all over, what did you really do yesterday that's worth mentioning?" Looking ahead instead of back, the question will become, "How did YOU spend your summer?" Hopefully the answer will be, "Launching my dream of working at what I love!"

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Article Tags: airport terminal, antique stove, business ideas, business ventures, creative idea, dream detective, dream notebook, hand washing, income stream, marketing idea, marketing ideas, repair business, scoping out, shop kids, soft serve ice cream, star wars fans, stove repair, three ways, traveling with kids, weekend guests



Related Forum Posts
Re: What is Your Favorite Thing About Owning A Business? - [quote="freddyb45":1t3lpfi8]For me it's the fact that all the time and effort you put in is worth a lot more, due to it making you "business" more profitable. Working for yourself is also a positive, although employing people you can trust is quite different.[/quote:1t3lpfi8] I like this idea. Working for yourself means you are investing in your own future, not someone else's, although there is value in working for someone else first to gain experience and confidence. Working for yourself does not automatically mean success, fame and fortune. For most entrepreneurs, it takes much work and dedication to get to the point of financial success and comfort - sometimes years. But the benefit is, again, you know you are investing in yourself and building equity for your own future. GT :-]
Re: Let me introduce myself, I'm Zacman - Hi Zacman, You are welcome to this great forum. How are you enjoying the cold. I prefer winter to Summer here in South Africa. The heat is so much that people nearly put on cloth here
$500,000 Give-away - I like dreaming so here goes... note: I didn't have much time to dream this up... 1. pay off my mom's mortgage 2. Take family (mom and brothers) on Vacation - probably send each one off to their own destinaton - no need to mix pleasure and family members. 3. buy some beach front property in the US 4. Invest in a business 5. Buy myself some nice suits and shirts.
Re: Moderators on vacation - Vacation was great! Lots of boating, swimming, sun bathing, and over eating! Yes, I am having a heck of a time getting re-focused. I've been back for over a week now and still haven't gotten a single thing done business wise. To make it even worse, I am in the process of planning another 10 day vacation for next month so my mind isn't coming out of vacation mode.
Re: Quote of the Day - Oprah - Love it - thanks GT!


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