Practice Your Passions
If your goal is to transform your passions into a business, or share them with the world, or even just improve them for the sake of improvement, I think that's extremely admirable. However, it's not enough to only have passions; practicing them is more important. Just because you love doing something, doesn't mean that it will come easily, or that your natural gift will carry you further than those who apply effective effort.
Think about the basketball player who has aspirations to be a famous NBA star.
Imagine if he said this to himself, "I'm going to be a great basketball player! So I'm going to go outside and shoot hoops a few times a week, when I feel like it or if I'm not too busy."
Doesn't sound like it's going to work?
Are you sure it's not going to work?
I agree. It won't.
But that's the same way many of us approach our passions and then wonder why we aren't wildly successful, in whatever way we define success. We have aspirations of writing a book, but then only write once or twice a week. We want to come up with a new mobile app, but only take one or two classes on coding. We want to learn to fix cars, but never bother to do more than change the oil a few times a year.
In order to be that amazing basketball player, that young boy is going to have to practice. Consistently. Obsessively. When his homework is done, he's going to have to race outside to play before it gets too dark. When the winter snows come, he's going to have to find an indoor court. When he wants to relax he's going to have to relax while watching reruns of famous players at the top of their game. And when there's no one on the court to play against, he's going to have to pretend there is and work on his shooting or dribbling skills. He's going to have to practice. A lot.
It doesn't matter what your definition of success is, it takes commitment to get there. It takes commitment to see the fruits of your labor. Without that commitment, life will be filled with half finished projects and loosely sketched out ideas, with nothing to actually show for it. And without anything to show for your work, how can you possibly feel that your activities are representative of your passion?
You may even go on to believe that you have no passion...
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Practicing your passions is not always easy. In fact, it can be extremely difficult to push yourself. To write everyday, to code everyday, to tinker everyday...is difficult. But the difference between doing something that you're passionate about and something you're not, is that even when it's difficult, you still do it. Because you believe that it's worth it. Because you believe that in the end, you will be proud of yourself and know that what you did was what you wanted and not only what someone else asked you to do. Because life is too short to not be doing what you want.
Do you practice your passions?
- Ryan