Categories: Mumpreneurs|

The things we do in the pursuit of happiness…

By |Published On: December 14th, 2017|

So you grow, you go to school, you make a decision on “what you are going to do when you grow up”, thus go to university, get a “proper” job, and work away. You go on some holidays when work allows, you may even have time for a hobby or two if work allows. You may have passions outside of work, but you know that these have to stay as side projects, side hustles, because pursuing hobbies as real-life careers is clearly a crazy idea. Or is it? What would happen if you stopped in your tracks and allowed yourself to remain in that moment, the moment where your hobby, your passion, becomes the reason you wake up every morning. Instead of following the path set out for you by preconceptions, yours and others, you broke those chains and followed what you believe to be a road to happiness. I know what most people would say: Well it´s all well and good having a hobby and a passion, but the bills will keep coming whether I am following my dream or not.”

So I set out to find out, how impossible, or possible(?) is it, to make your dream a reality?

It´s funny isn´t it, how the cosmos works its way to make sure you meet certain people. If it hadn´t been for the mutual love of champagne and the fact that the world is indeed a remarkably small place, after all, I would never have met “the other Anna from Sweden”.

I meet Anna in her home in Zug, Switzerland, where she has lived for no less than nearly 18 years. She is a self-proclaimed typical goody-two-shoes. She loved school, studied hard to get into the right courses and eventually the right university. She got the right job and the right man, moved to Switzerland, a very safe country in all respects. She worked hard and earned good money, had babies and returned to her work in the financial sector. Really, everything was going well. Only it wasn´t. Deep inside of her grew a feeling of discontent: Was this it? Having done everything that was expected of her, Anna felt there should be a feeling of reward and fulfilment, and those feelings were shining strongly in their absence. Why was she not just happy and content? Her therapist pointed out the answer Anna already knew: she needed to change her job. Not just her job but also her career. It was the one thing she had not really even contemplated, not for real, because how could she? How does one just give up one´s job and career to focus on your passion?

Thankfully Anna and her husband came to the conclusion that there was no real alternative – A life of potential happiness and fulfilment, or a life of stability? Hell, you could be hit by a bus tomorrow, so what option is “stability”?

Pursuit of happiness handcrafted jewellery

Said and done – Anna resigned from her life as a treasury manager and instead decided to focus solely on her gold smithing hobby, by embarking on a gold smithing apprenticeship, got herself a mentor and set to work. She did not lose her head completely though; she got a part-time job with a goldsmith and designs jewellery for a fashion jewellery brand, whilst fine-tuning her craft. Now, four and a half years later she has a full order book due to the demand and she has well and truly turned her hobby into her career. That moment she says, came when she realised she actually wanted to go away on holiday this summer, rather than just continue to work on her designs.

So, in hindsight, what was it that really made Anna make the leap from the “goody two-shoes” treasury manager with a safe and stable income to Anna the goldsmith?

Anna Andrén: I wanted to build things. Beautiful and lasting things, and I wanted to be able to do the whole process myself, from idea to finished product. I also longed for a profession where it pays off to be a perfectionist. Of course everyone wanted a job well done in my earlier career, but mostly there was not enough time to do the last perfecting 20%. In what I do now, perfectionism really pays off and this makes me very, very happy.

Of course there were times when we all thought this was too mad an idea, but we had played it safe – the children were at local non-fee paying school, the house was bought and my husband still had (and has) a very stable job.

And to be honest, she never needed have worried of course – her jewellery is stunning. It´s that typical Scandinavian “less is more” style that I simply adore. When you see it you want it.

So what can we learn from Anna and her pursuit of her dreams? What is her advice? Can anyone “do it”?

Anna Andrén: Do it, sure, but “make it” is another question. It takes a lot of hard graft. A lot! It doesn´t really matter if you have a great concept to start with, nothing is going to be a success overnight.

So I guess my advice would be to ask yourself some serious questions. Are you really prepared to turn your dream into a reality, or are you perhaps actually quite happy to continue with your dream as a hobby? On the other hand, you are never really going to know what it´s like until you actually do it. I am personally very happy that I will not have to retire thinking “what if”. That would be so much worse than having tried and failed.

You can find Anna Andrén’s studio in Zug or see her jewellery here. You don’t need an appointment, just visit her and choose what you want her to make for you!

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About the Author: Tsitaliya Mircheva

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Tsitaliya is a writer and fashion journalist for more than 20 years. She founded Mums in Heels 10 years ago and keeps growing and evolving together with her community or fashionable mums and responsible consumers. Fashion and Wellness are her most favourite topics to write about.