Finding your passion – creatively speaking

I recently shared an article on social media about, as a creative, how to focus your “brand” when you have many passions, I’ll come back to that later because first I need to share how I have been on a bit of a voyage of self discovery which just helped to clarify my passions, the things that make me tick. Let’s move on a couple of weeks. When I was researching and writing my recent post about reading, I came across an interesting checklist on how to find your passion. It occurred to me then that some people have many passions, some have one all consuming passion and then some may not be sure what they are most passionate about or even if they feel passionate about anything.

Does it matter?

I thought I might delve deeper and, as a creative, look at it in terms of my own creativity. the things that fire me up. Equally, finding your passion in life would surely make a difference because you would concentrate on doing something that you find valuable. Those who are the most successful will happily tell others how much they love what they do. Passion is the fuel that will keep you on the path toward realizing your goals and achieving your dreams.

For the purposes of this piece I read a lot, I mean a LOT! of articles. Often framed in different ways, like 50 Deep Questions for Self Discovery, 19 Questions To Help You Find Your Why, Find Your Path In Life With These 3 Questions. The amount of questions ranged from 3 to 50, the amount of articles and blog posts, countless, seriously Google or Pinterest and you will be faced with a barage of helpful but often overly complicated methods to discover the you in you. There were, though, some recurring questions that cut through the information/question overload that seemed to get to the heart of it and most came back to Jung.

What lights my fire?

Why do I enjoy doing it?

What would I do more of if nobody else was judging?

What did I love doing as a child? *

I used these four questions from a blogger who aims to educate and support people in spiritual and personal growth and applied them to my own life, it confirmed what I already felt was the authentic me, who I am, what I am passionate about. The article is very insightful and full of really useful ideas, I’ve put a link at the end of this piece so you can go and have a read if you’d like to find out more.  But answer those four questions and you will have the essence of what you can focus on.  In many ways it comes back to the whole journaling exercise I talked about last month. The more you write and explore the activities you do, the plans you make the more defined and focused your ideas become. Once you have a direction to go in the path becomes lighter and easier. If, like me, you find you have more than one passion then you need to find a way to balance those passions, they will likely complement each other anyway and have an over arching theme. It’s all about balance really.

The way I do this is to be realistic, set myself boundaries, organise my days so each of the areas I need to keep fueled don’t run out of steam. The benefit is that if I come across a block of some kind, or, lose my spark in one area I can go do something else to put the zip back into my step. If my writing feels stale or dries up I might put on music and pick up some slow stitching, bake a cake, pick flowers, take photos, sketch or paint. There is always something to pour my energy into.

If, on the other hand, you are befuddled because there are too many passions in your life, particularly from a business/work perspective you might like to give this article a read How to Create One Brand When You Have Many Passions by Lena Chervenkova

Of course, this doesn’t just apply to business or work and age should not be a factor. I’m retired and in my 60’s and the things I am passionate about now haven’t really changed but my priorities have. When I was managing my work and training company my passion was teaching and supporting my teams, now I’m retired I still have a passion to pass on my experience and knowledge but now I do it here or in a voluntary capacity for organisations and individuals that I come across in my day to day life. It is good to keep my hand in.

Which I believe is the crux of being passionate about what you do, it’s not about the money, don’t get me wrong earning an honest crust from delivering something you are passionate about is what we aspire to, making a living from something you love doing. But we tend to do the things we are passionate about exceptionally well regardless of monetary value because we get something more from those achievements.

I’d love to hear your take on on the subject, have you always known your passion/s, are you going through a voyage of discovery, do you find it easy to balance your passions?

If you missed my blog about journaling and would like to find out more or even give it a go, you can find it here 

*Questions and image shared from How to Find your Divine Purpose and Fulfil it – Through the Phases,  a guide to spiritual and personal growth