HOW TO PLAN PASSION IN YOUR DAY TO DAY LIFE

April 17, 2020
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As a lover of sports, physiotherapist, trainer, coach and partner to a teacher, I’ve heard most life stories in more ways than one. The thing that strikes me, is the inconsistency of passion which makes me wonder, “there must a way to plan and invite it into your daily day to day”?

Passion shouldn’t be this intense feeling you feel only once in a while. Let me use a different analogy. Valentine’s Day in the commercial sense, is not an everyday occurring event, but when it’s here, you may spend hours, a vast amount of energy and possibly lots of money on it. For one day or night you go out of your way to perhaps buy some flowers, organise a dinner, present a beautiful gift to that special person in your life. But….after the roadside rose stands pack up and goes home, you declare your love or just wake up the next day, you forget about it and life returns to the usual daily routine.

Let us agree we can be passionate about a lot of different things in our life. Such as; family, kids, career, business, health, sporting achievements, volunteer work, your community, gardening, animals, exercise and the list goes on and on. Rest assured, I have a solution to up your passion anti.

“Oh no,” I can hear you thinking and sighing, “Here it comes. You’re going to tell me to be happy and grateful for every day, maybe even mediate or buy flowers more often”.

Nope. I’m going to tell you to change your mindset and make passion your hobby. Yep you read it right, make passion your hobby. Wait what??? Think about that for a minute. What defines a hobby? Well, a hobby is something you do because you want to. You enjoy doing it, you make time for it, and you prioritize it. You carve out time for exercising/training, painting, gardening; watching your child’s school play, volunteer at your local community, personal developing yourself, your career, business etc. And you strive to improve – you hire a personal trainer, take paint classes, read a “secrets to a vibrant garden” book, schedule time in your diary to attend that play or take a personal development course.

Now I hear you say, “Not everything is a joy to do but they MUST be done, are you telling me I need to be passionate about doing things I don’t enjoy”?

Well, you may not “enjoy” doing them, but… what does doing them allow you to do? What does it do for you when you complete them? You see it’s easy to lose perspective and drive when we get stuck in the details. When we get overwhelmed with “stuff” and we get weighed down and lose that drive or dare I say motivation.

So let’s make this year different. Decide to uncover the passion in all your activities. Make finding passion your new hobby.

Here are my top tips to help you keep the buzz even when you don’t enjoy what needs to be done:

If you want to master the Passion side Daily life, you need to activate your imagination and wake up all five senses. Like too many people, we get bogged down with details, deadlines, pressure to complete this and that and your life might have turned into what I call “Same Day Different Story.” You know what I’m talking about. We tend to reduce our life to routine, the familiar and the habitual – forgetting that there is almost no limit to what you as a human being, who has a heart, imagination can do. That’s like playing one hole of golf, over and over, the same way – when all the magnificent, golf courses of the world await you. So here’s a challenge when you find yourself stuck in a rut. STOP! Ask yourself, for what purpose am I doing this? or what will doing this get me or allow me to do? Whatever answer you have, challenge it by asking yourself the same question again, but you cannot give the same answer. Ask yourself either of those two questions 3-5 times. You will be amazed how quickly it takes you out of details to reminding yourself to see the bigger picture.

Look, you are totally human for feeling like procrastinating at times, welcome to the club. I know I certainly have at times. Dismissing your feelings vs. recognising your feelings are clearly two different things. When we dismiss our feelings we ignore them. When we recognise our feelings we become aware of our feelings. It’s ok to not be in the mood to “have to, must do or need to” do something.

When you’re under the pump, everybody seems to want a piece of you and you are thinking about your taxes of course you are not going to be in the mood to attend to one or any of them. The good news? If you choose to make passion a priority – and say “not right now, but ask me later” – you can get into the mood by choice. Remember, what will completing those specific tasks do for you or allow you to do? Not only will it change your perspective, it will also give you time allowing those emotions to literally come up so you can empty yourself from them. You can’t fill up a full cup, first you must empty it.

Of course there are certain activities that absolutely fill your heart with joy, get your juices flowing and make you want to get started NOW. I have two words: schedule passion. Filling up your cup with passion will absolutely help you through times when you’re feeling low on your passion supply. Remember tip number two. If you ignore your feelings and then complacently wait around to spontaneously feel like getting started, – you probably won’t. So make passion a hobby. Find it in all that you do, no matter how small or big and schedule a daily or weekly passion date whether it is with you or with others. Passion is infectious and fuels creativity, I can’t wait to hear your stories.