We hear a lot about “finding your passion” and doing something that truly fulfills you but lately I’ve been thinking that perhaps this isn’t the best approach for most people.
It’s hard to balance passion with making a sustainable living and all too often I see people struggling to be “fulfilled” to the point that their passion is destroyed, innocently enough, by the fundamental need to pay the bills.
A friend and mentor of mine recently presented to me an alternative mindset that resonated with me on a number of levels that goes as follows:
- Find something that makes you enough money to survive.
- Find an activity to keep you fit.
- Find a passion or hobby that keeps you fulfilled.
In a perfect world we would find one activity that delivers all three but lets face it, unless you’re a celebrity yoga teacher or professional athlete, we might have to resort to finding a few things to deliver on these basic needs.
For me — I’ve learned that I am creatively, spiritually, and physically fulfilled through frequent travel, my yoga practice and cooking. My interests in these three passions fluctuate depending on the time of year, my financial resources and my ever shifting focus.
I make my living in a number of ways including coworking, farmers & makers markets, music merchandising, and software development and while I enjoy what I do for a living, I find it important maintain a healthy boundary between work and both physical and creative fulfillment.
To say that I maintain a pretty intense work schedule would be an understatement but I long ago embraced that working more does not equal getting more work done.
I consciously make time for the “other” things in my life including maintaining a daily yoga practice, cooking a healthy plant based meal after work and spending lunch and evenings with my wife and son. I consider these things as important, dare I say, more so, than any team meeting or client deadline.
Obviously everyones circumstances vary and few of us can just completely change our workflow or upend our personal life but I challenge you find one or two little ways you can begin to incorporate your passion and a small degree of physical activity into your daily routine.