How To Tell Your Parents You Have Other Career Plans

Most parents have amazing career plans for their children. They want them to be doctors, lawyers, engineers, and other high profile jobs. Being that my parents come from an Asian background, my parents were the same way as I really only had two career options in their eyes.

Doctor or lawyer. Those were literally the 2 choices I had regardless of whether I liked those career paths or not. I not only had to tell my parents I didn’t want to do either, but I also had to convince them to let me take time off from college to pursue my dreams as an entrepreneur.

That conversation wasn’t easy. Especially when I started the conversation, my parents weren’t willing to budge from their views. They were hoping my passion for entrepreneurship was just a ‘phase’ and that it would eventually go away.

Well, they were wrong. I couldn’t continue pursuing a career I didn’t enjoy so I had to convince my parents. It took months of effort and even today they aren’t fully convinced, but they’ve given me the opportunity to pursue my dreams.

I get emails from many young entrepreneurs who are in a similar position as me so I thought I’d write a blog article sharing how I told my parents I had other plans.

Showing Them Is Better Than Telling Them

In the beginning, I kept telling my parents that I wanted to be an entrepreneur and that I could make it happen. However, they kept saying that it was risky and wasn’t the best route.

The reason why their argument kept winning was because I was only telling them, but I hadn’t shown them enough. If you want your parents to support your decision to be an entrepreneur, you need to show them that you can support yourself doing just that.

It wasn’t until about 1-2 years later once I had sold my first company that they actually believed I could make it happen as an entrepreneur. It was proof. I built something myself and I showed them that I could do it.

If you have big dreams but haven’t done anything to pursue them, it’s all talk. No parent or investor will ever sign off on someone who tells them about the great things they plan to do but hasn’t done them yet.

Stay silent for a while if you have to and make things happen. Once you have proof and have proven your skills as an entrepreneur, you have a better argument with your parents.

Let Your Passion Show

This one is easy. If you’re really passionate about the new career path that you want to take, let your passion show to your parents.

As I said earlier, my parents thought my love for entrepreneurship would be a short-term thing that would eventually fizzle out. However, they saw for 1-2 years that I was consistently working 24/7 to be successful as an entrepreneur.

If you want to be an artist, you’re going to be the happiest when you’re painting and that’s what will take up your life. If you’re a singer, you’re going to be in the studio recording like an addict.

Letting your passion show is easy, but sometimes it takes time. Not only do you need to prove it to yourself, but you need to show your parents that you really love what you want to do.

Use Examples

Parents want to make sure that you are successful and play it safe. That’s just how society expects them to think and that’s how most people end up thinking. You’re one of the few people who think differently.

My parents kept making cases that being an entrepreneur wasn’t necessarily safe because so many people fail at it. While it was true, I decided to dig deep to find examples of people who were successful.

I showed them many different people who were successful as an entrepreneur and tried to show them as many parallels as possible. When I wanted to take a semester off, I made a compelling case to my parents which got them to say YES.

I told them that while college is important, it’s something that will never go away. Opportunities on the other hand can disappear a lot quicker due to competition, technology and other things.

No matter what happened, I could always go back to college and get my degree. I could take the path that they wanted me to take, I would just be a few years behind. However, I couldn’t always go back to those same opportunities after college.

This was the case I used to convince my parents to allow me to take time off from college. Show your parents examples of people who found success when they were in a similar position as you.

Don’t Give Up

Parents don’t always see eye to eye with everything you do right away. For me, it took me about 1-2 years before I could just get some time off from college to focus on my businesses.

The biggest thing I learned was that you have to stay persistent with your family. Take small steps and slowly gain their trust. You can’t convince your parents overnight and I realized that after some time.

Even though I really wanted my parents to see my side right away, I knew that it was going to take a lot longer. It was a really big decision on their part and they needed to build that trust with me to allow me to take such a big leap of faith.

Conclusion

I know it can be a struggle to get your parents to allow you to chase your dreams, but it’s something you cannot shy away from. If you or someone you know may be struggling with this, please have them contact me as I’d love to help them out!

photo credit: kevin dooley via photopin cc