You Can Focus Your Camera, But What About Your Passions?

© Igor Stepovik

Life without passion is a slow way to freeze to death!
Author Unknown

​​I love to find a couple of good quotes every day. It's not as much for the purpose of sharing and building content, as it is the way reading something poignant gets my blood circulating. It's a morning workout to feed my brain a little. I put the quote above into my tweet stream but wanted to add my thoughts with a short post. 

"Passion" has probably become the most abused and taken-for-granted word in our industry as well as our lives. We talk about our passions like they were dietary supplements. We tell our clients how passionate we are about the business, our families, life and our hobbies. But I'm not sure we realize that just like a car out of gas, we're not moving without real passion.

Anybody can take a picture. Anybody can start a business from that first lemonade stand you had as a kid to your website today. Anybody can get married, start a family, get a puppy and convince themselves they're living the dream!  But when you get right down to it, if you're not waking up in the morning with a smile on your face, then your passion is getting buried under the challenges in your life.

"If you can't figure out your purpose, figure out your passion.
For your passion will lead you right into your purpose."
Bishop T. D. Jakes

So, here's my point - recognize those things you're truly passionate about. Give them the extra priority they deserve. Don't put off feeding your passions.  Recognize you don't just have one, but dozens and at one point or another they all need feeding.

And, if today is one of those days when you're just off a beat, then take a break. Take a passion break and just do something incredibly frivolous - recharge your battery and work to find that balance so none of your passions get lost along with the technician from Comcast!

I wrote a post last week about your dreams and time being your most important commodity. Doing something without one ounce of passion might well be the biggest waste of time of all.

"Those who live passionately teach us how to love.
Those who love passionately teach us how to live."
Sarah Ban Breathnack