Job vs. Career vs. Hobbies vs. Vocation: Where Does Music Fit In?

It’s imperative you know the difference between a job vs. career vs. hobbies vs. vocation.

Especially as a part-time musician. 

You need to know where music fits into your life, and you need to be honest with yourself about it. 

This post will show you the difference between these four things and help you figure out what music is to you…

Job v.s Career vs. Hobbies vs. Vocation: Why Should You Know the Difference

Elizabeth Gilbert is a best-selling author, famously known for Eat Pray Love. I’ve not read it, but I’ve learned a lot from her in the above video.

She explains the difference between your job, career, hobbies, and vocation. 

Every part-time musician needs to watch this video because it’s all about balance. 

How do you make music while still living a life with responsibilities and other interests?

You also need to be honest about the role music plays in your life.

Because, for example, you don’t want to treat music like your career when, deep down, you want it to be your hobby. Or vice versa. 

So let me break down these four things to help you understand where music fits in your life. 

Keep in mind, these four things can often overlap (more on that at the end)… 

What Are Hobbies?

Your hobbies are defined by one phrase: fun with no expectations. 

You do hobbies for pure enjoyment. As Gilbert says, “The stakes are zero.”

No one has to know about your hobby. You don’t have to make money from it. It’s an enjoyable thing you do to remind yourself that you’re not just paying bills and waiting to die.  

Hobbies are just for you. Not for anyone else. 

For example, I love playing basketball. Sometimes with others, sometimes by myself.

Am I good? I’m not bad.

Am I going to post videos of myself playing basketball on social media? No, because I don’t care what people think about it.

Will I ever play professionally? Heck no (but I used to think I could).  

It’s a fun hobby that’s just for me. 

You don’t need a hobby, it’s just a nice thing to have. 

What Is a Job?

You do need a job. I don’t need to tell you this. 

A job has one purpose: to make you money. 

“Guess who else has had a job?” Gilbert says. “Almost every artist who has ever lived!”

We live in a world with this made-up thing called money that we need to earn in order to survive. 

While your employer definitely needs to pay you fairly and treat you with dignity, you don’t have to love your job. In fact, you shouldn’t. 

A job is not meant to fulfill you creatively or give you meaning in life. 

It’s meant to give you food and a place to live. 

“The contract is, there’s material world and there’s spiritual/artistic world,” she says. “They don’t always intersect. That’s fine.”

Having a job is a way to be a self-reliant adult, which earns you money which means you have what you need. 

And when you have what you need, you can better focus on what you enjoy doing, like music. 

RELATED: The Best Day Jobs for Musicians

What Is a Career?

Here’s the difference between a job vs. career…

“A career is a job that you are passionate about,” Gilbert says.

A career is a thing you do that pays for you to live, and it’s also something you love, something you’ll put in the extra work to succeed at. 

In a career, you will go above and beyond, and your boss will expect that of you. 

And if you’re in a “career” you hate, that’s not a career. That’s a job. 

As Gilbert says, if you hate your career, quit and go get a regular job. 

Because if you’re in a career position that takes up a ton of your time and drains you mentally and emotionally, you won’t be left with any energy to make music. 

“You should love your career or not have one,” she says. 

To be clear, you don’t need a career. It’s totally optional.

RELATED: Start a Career in Music Today With These 6 Simple Steps

What Is a Vocation?

Gilbert calls your vocation “the holiest, most sacred, most amazing and mystical pursuit of all.”

A vocation is “a calling.” What is a calling?

It’s something you do almost automatically because if you don’t do it, you feel like you might explode. 

A vocation feels like breathing.

It’s deeper than a hobby. Your hobbies come and go as you move through life. 

But your vocation sticks around. It’s your contribution to the world, something you feel you need to do. 

You’re using your talents and gifts to create something because it’s part of who you are. 

“Nobody can give it to you and nobody can take it from you,” Gilbert says. 

Somebody can take your job or career away from you, but no one can make you stop pursuing your vocation.

Gilbert’s vocation was writing for about a decade before it became her job and now her career. 

“I will do this for as long as I breathe, regardless of whether anything ever comes of it,” she says of writing. 

As she pursued her vocation, she purposefully had a job and not a career. Because she knew if she had a career, she wouldn’t have time to develop her vocation. 

So as a musician, don’t have a career that takes over your life and keeps you from doing your vocation. 

Your vocation is a fire that should not be forced to go out because of life responsibilities. 

“My career as a writer might end someday,” she says. “…My vocation will not. My vocation is a fire that will keep going. So if my career as a writer ends, guess what I’m gonna do next – I’m gonna get a job…and I’m gonna keep writing in my bedroom like I did before anybody cared.”

My vocation is songwriting. I’ve been doing it since age 15, long before anyone cared.

Today, it’s part of my career. But regardless of what happens with my music career, I will write songs for as long as my body and brain allow me to. 

And I believe everyone has a vocation, even if they don’t realize it.

How To Decide if Music Is Your Hobby, Job, Career, or Vocation

I started playing music at age 12, writing songs at age 15, released my first public album at age 19, and it wasn’t until age 30 that I started making a consistent side income from music. 

And now, music is how I earn a large portion of my living (which includes money directly from my music and also writing about music).

So for nearly two decades, playing music was my hobby. Gradually, it moved from hobby to job to now my career. 

But my vocation was, is, and will always be writing songs (that is until my body and brain decide otherwise).

Where does music fit into your life? 

Be honest with yourself, because there’s no wrong answer here.

Ask yourself… 

• Is music a hobby? Then enjoy it like one. 
• Do you want to earn a side income from music? Then maybe see it as a side job. 
• Or do you want to earn a living from music? Then view it as your career and dive head-first into pursuing it. 

But really, the most important question of all is, what is your vocation?

If it’s music, then what part of music? 

Find the thing you do as a musician that feels like breathing. 

Then hold onto it, regardless of whether it earns you money or not.

“If you’ve confused your job or your career with what it means to be creative…and you think because you have a job or a career, you’re not allowed to pursue your passion…you are wrong,” Gilbert says. 

No matter what music is to you, how it fits into your life, you can make music you’re proud of.