It feels like lately my career exploration has been sparse and unorganized. I don’t know if it’s because my fitness and diet goals have been taking up so much of my time. Or maybe it was my focus on the recent play I filmed. Or likely, it’s just the messed up state of the world.
Whatever, it is, I feel like I haven’t done much.
But it’s not like I’ve done nothing. I don’t think there’s ever a time when I do nothing. It seems like I don’t know how to not be busy.
So, I thought it’d be interesting to reflect on the things that filled my time when I wasn’t actively and purposefully exploring career paths:
I watched a lot of YouTube
Of all the subscription services we have — Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney+, etc. — I actually consume most of my video media on the one free service — YouTube.
Maybe it’s because most of the videos I watch are relatively short and, therefore, easily digestible. Or maybe it’s because of the endless variety of content you can find on the platform. Whatever it is, some days, I’ll put on an interesting video and the next thing I know, I’ve been watching videos for hours.
It has definitely reinforced how much I enjoy consuming video and particularly on the YouTube platform.
I’ve been cooking … and start filming it
As part of my work to lose weight and improve my health, I’ve done an overhaul of my diet, cutting out almost all processed foods and focusing on eating well-balanced meals. This, of course, requires me to make nearly everything I eat from scratch, which means I’ve been doing a lot of cooking.
And remember when I talked about watching a lot of YouTube … I mean, literally two paragraphs ago? Well, some of those videos have been around healthy food recipes.
So, I thought: “Well, I’m making these healthy meals anyway. Why don’t I just film myself doing it?”
It obviously added a little time to my food prep, but not too much. Learning from my past video projects, I kept things simple with minimal camera set-ups. And I plan to just do voiceover rather than narrating as I film, so I didn’t need to worry about optimizing sound as I filmed.
I haven’t started editing yet, but I’m thinking this could be a potential new YouTube channel for me, with a wider audience.
I’ve done a little job hunting
I have hopped on LinkedIn about once a week to see what type of jobs are available. Since I’m not set on which direction I want to pursue, I cast my net wide when it comes to looking for opportunities, searching keywords that cover some of the areas that I’ve enjoyed:
- Podcast
- Video producer
- Interior design
- Content creator
I’ll say that the well is pretty dry.
There aren’t really many professional podcast opportunities here in the Bay Area — I mostly see things pop up in L.A.
For video production openings, companies seemed to be looking for people who have a lot more experience than I do, specifically on large-scale shoots with all the professional equipment (understandable!). They also often are looking for candidates with a full portfolio and list of freelance production contacts.
The interior design opportunities haven’t been that interesting to me or they are looking for experienced interior designers.
The only area that has both piqued my interest and lined up with my qualifications has been writing opportunities — whether that be social media or website content.
Moving forward
Looking at how I’ve spent my time these past several weeks, I want to continue my work on video, understanding that it may always just be a hobby. I’d like to do an initial edit of the food footage I’ve shot in the next couple of weeks.
And I’m also going to work on putting together some resumes tailored toward the various writing opportunities I’m seeing.