---
title: The Financial Upside of Not Following Your Dreams
description: Personal finance journalist Jonathan Clements says it's not a horrible thing to focus on a higher-paying career when you're young.
authors:
  - name: wordsthatecho
    url: https://money.com/author/wordsthatecho/
    at_money_since: 2015
    articles: 44
    covers:
      - Career Advice
      - Education
      - Housing
      - Insurance
      - Investing
      - Lifestyle
      - Loans
      - Personal Finance
      - Retirement
    former_staff: true
published: '2016-11-29T19:37:24.000Z'
modified: '2016-11-29T19:37:24.000Z'
section: Career Advice
tags:
  - Careers
  - gaining wealth
  - Money
  - Saving
  - video
word_count: 126
canonical: https://money.com/dont-follow-dreams-money-financial-upside-careers/
type: Article
source: structured-blocks
---

> **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/).

![gaining-wealth-00_01_02_12-still001](https://img.money.com/2016/11/gaining-wealth-00_01_02_12-still001.jpg)

Personal finance journalist [Jonathan Clements](https://www.jonathanclements.com) suggests that the usual advice to young adults to follow your dreams—in choosing your major and your extracurricular activities—isn't necessarily the best advice. The probem is that it usually takes a little while for people to figure out what their life's passions are, and young adults don't always get it right the first time. So rather than spending your early working career in a low-paying "dream" job, he suggests you might as well spend those formative young-adult years socking away a lot of money. Such a strategy will ward off the discouraging feeling that young adults can often have, because at that stage in life, the only way their savings can grow significantly is through their own contributions to their savings.

```json
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@graph": [
    {
      "@type": "BreadcrumbList",
      "@id": "https://money.com/dont-follow-dreams-money-financial-upside-careers/#breadcrumb",
      "itemListElement": [
        {
          "@type": "ListItem",
          "position": 1,
          "name": "Home",
          "item": "https://money.com"
        },
        {
          "@type": "ListItem",
          "position": 2,
          "name": "Career Advice",
          "item": "https://money.com/career-advice/"
        },
        {
          "@type": "ListItem",
          "position": 3,
          "name": "Salaries and Wages",
          "item": "https://money.com/salaries-and-wages/"
        },
        {
          "@type": "ListItem",
          "position": 4,
          "name": "The Financial Upside of Not Following Your Dreams"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "@type": "WebSite",
      "@id": "https://money.com/#website",
      "url": "https://money.com",
      "name": "Money",
      "publisher": {
        "@id": "https://money.com/#organization"
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "WebPage",
      "@id": "https://money.com/dont-follow-dreams-money-financial-upside-careers/#webpage",
      "url": "https://money.com/dont-follow-dreams-money-financial-upside-careers/",
      "name": "The Financial Upside of Not Following Your Dreams",
      "isPartOf": {
        "@id": "https://money.com/#website"
      },
      "datePublished": "2016-11-29T19:37:24.000Z",
      "mainEntity": {
        "@id": "https://money.com/dont-follow-dreams-money-financial-upside-careers/"
      },
      "inLanguage": "en-US",
      "breadcrumb": {
        "@id": "https://money.com/dont-follow-dreams-money-financial-upside-careers/#breadcrumb"
      },
      "dateModified": "2016-11-29T19:37:24.000Z"
    },
    {
      "@type": "Article",
      "headline": "The Financial Upside of Not Following Your Dreams",
      "articleSection": "Career Advice",
      "image": [
        {
          "@type": "ImageObject",
          "url": "https://img.money.com/2016/11/gaining-wealth-00_01_02_12-still001.jpg",
          "width": 1920,
          "height": 1080,
          "caption": "gaining-wealth-00_01_02_12-still001"
        }
      ],
      "author": [
        {
          "@type": "Person",
          "name": "wordsthatecho",
          "url": "https://money.com/author/wordsthatecho/",
          "@id": "https://money.com/author/wordsthatecho/#author"
        }
      ],
      "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization",
      "datePublished": "2016-11-29T19:37:24.000Z",
      "description": "Personal finance journalist Jonathan Clements says it's not a horrible thing to focus on a higher-paying career when you're young.",
      "abstract": "Personal finance journalist Jonathan Clements says it's not a horrible thing to focus on a higher-paying career when you're young.",
      "@id": "https://money.com/dont-follow-dreams-money-financial-upside-careers/",
      "inLanguage": "en-US",
      "dateModified": "2016-11-29T19:37:24.000Z",
      "wordCount": 126,
      "keywords": [
        "Careers",
        "gaining wealth",
        "Money",
        "Saving",
        "video"
      ],
      "about": [
        {
          "@type": "Thing",
          "name": "Career counseling",
          "sameAs": [
            "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Career_counseling"
          ]
        },
        {
          "@type": "Thing",
          "name": "Wages and salaries",
          "sameAs": [
            "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wages_and_salaries"
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}
```