Passion doesn’t really work the way everyone sometimes like to say it does. You don’t just find it. From my own personal experience I was almost 40 years old by the time I found mine. There is a science around it. It doesn’t matter what you’re trying to be. Perspective is everything and its there if you go deep enough to find it.
You think you can find your passion in the midst of pain and suffering? You probably wouldn’t think so, but you can. When you’ve had enough pain and suffering, you can make it your passion to not feel that way any more. You can find some solid ground in looking for an innovative idea that gets you out of the hurt locker and back into the best version of yourself. Your very own Renaissance.
You typically won’t find it in a pursuit of perfection. Passion is messy and all over the place sometimes. You ever see a Pollack? Jackson Pollack’s art was all over the place. There was no perfection about it. Just raw passion. We need to find a method to connect to that rawness. Perfection won’t let you. I’d liketo tell you what mechanism you need exactly to get there, but I can’t. Everyone’s mechanism is different. But, 78% of us studies show we think perfection is the way to go.
I’ve read a ton of postings and books that state you should just go all in. This doesn’t really work either. How do you know you’re going all in on the right thing? Instead, a incremental approach to the passion match is a solid approach. Incrementally increasing your energy you involve in the pursuit won’t time you out. Can you imagine burning out on what is suppose to be your passion? Especially after you quit your day job! Nope, not me either. The fit mind-set to match your passion with yourself rarely works. Incremental allows you to commit just the right energy, attention, and study to figure your passion out.
Can a passion become unhealthy? You bet! It’s easy for us to dip into losing our sight of what originally motivated us because we went all in to fast. Obessive passions are completely unhealthy. If you have the slightest feeling that you’re getting obsessive in your pursuits of passions, quit. Pause to start. Then reassess. The very best passions will sustain themselves.
We need to find the crossroads of harmonious passions. These are passions when you’re in them, you do them just for the joy of doing them. This IBtP and the podcasting I’m into is exactly that. I just enjoy doing them. It’s not really work. I do still feel completely guilty when I fall off my rhythm of posting and let my viewers down. Then I have to remind myself. I don’t do this for the views or even likes. I do this because I enjoy it. It’s a release and in some cases therapy. When we do our passions for the joy of doing them we are much more likely to find external rewards in the pursuit.
Passion on its own, won’t solve your life problems. There has to be balance in the passion with that of other things. If you’re singularly focused in just the passion with no balance, you’ll burn out. The most successful people in history like Steve Jobs, Mahatma Gandhi, Lincoln, and Ben Franklin lived extremely balanced lives. Honor you passion by giving it space on its own and compliment it with something that isn’t directly tied to your passion. I’m learning Spanish when I’m not writing, blogging, or podcasting. I’m not passionate about learning a new language, just curious. I run when I’m not involved in my passion. Stepping outside your passion once in a while also can give you a much bigger perspective that can fuel your passion.
Bringing harmonious acts into your pursuits for passion and practicing incremental dives into your passion are much healthier approaches. It can develop you into an incredibly healthy discipline. It does require sacrifice, but you can choose how you sacrifice and sacrifice for the right things. The joy and rewards from those approaches, I’ve found where I belong and where my energy should be spent. My passion is stronger than ever.
✌ Shawn
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