Wasn’t This Supposed to Be Fun? How to Keep the Passion in Your Pursuits

What is the THING, or if you are lucky THINGS, you love to do? Is it something physical, like running or swimming? Or are you an artist? Someone who uses her hands or creativity to craft, build, create music, or follow some other artistic pursuit? Or is your thing more cerebral, like writing, blogging, or reading?

Whatever it is, consider yourself lucky if you have some pursuit that pulls you in and that makes you lose all sense of time when you’re doing it. But if you are passionate about your pursuit you also run the risk of taking it too seriously. By that I mean forgetting how good it feels to do what you love and focusing instead on what your passion can do for you.

Before you know it doing what you love isn’t enough. You want results! But along the way, you may notice you’re not having As much fun as you used to.

As an example, I love writing, but realized I had decided that it only mattered when the activities I did “counted”. I was punishing myself when I didn’t think my writing was leading toward a bigger goal and doing things I didn’t like because I thought they would.

Though my story is specific to my passion, I think others who have a THING will identify with my story. If you have been losing interest in your passion you may just be focusing on the wrong things. You can read my whole story on Medium Math for Writers: How to Suck the Joy Out of Writing by Turning Passion into Point Values.

Stay passionate!

MATH FOR WRITERS

I have never been good at math. Just ask my mom. My next oldest brother is the one who is the numbers whiz. I’m the youngest of nine kids and all the profitable skills were taken by the time I came…

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This post was previously published on Catherine Lanser and is republished here with permission from the author.
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