Making Time for your Passion

You’ve asked yourself the tough questions, you’ve done your soul-searching and you’ve explored the deep corners of your heart. At the end of it all, you’ve discovered what it is that you are most passionate about. Your passion is what keeps you up at night, gets you out of bed in the morning and occupies your thoughts in between. Your passion is what brings you joy in the darkest of moments and pulls you out of your down moods. It lights your soul on fire and gives you a sense of purpose.

Discovering your passion may seem like the hard part, but figuring out how to incorporate it into your life can be the biggest hurdle of all. The tough question isn’t always “what is your passion?”, but “how do you make room for your passion in your life?”. Do you drop everything you’re doing and move full-steam ahead? Do you take it slow and steady? It can often be so overwhelming that many people never take those first steps toward their passions.

I know first hand how overwhelming it may seem. I’m fortunate because I’ve known ever since I was 12 years old that I am passionate about writing. Whether it is writing short stories, journaling about my thoughts or documenting the major milestones in my life, writing has always been a part of my life. Writing has been that “thing” that I think about most often. I’ve always known that I wanted to write, but I haven’t always known in what capacity.

It wasn’t until about a year ago that I began to make room for my passion. When I created this blog, I knew that I would be inviting writing back into my life, but I didn’t realize that it would lead me to another passion. Through putting my work out there and connecting with others, I’ve learned that I am equally as passionate about helping others discover their passions and leading their most fulfilling lives. This blog has allowed me to live out both of these endeavours without sacrificing anything in my life. In fact, if I’m being completely honest, I’d say that it has actually filled my life with more happiness and purpose than anything else I’ve ever done.

“If you’re going to make room for something in your life, why not let it be the thing that fills your soul with love and light and makes you feel alive?”

Of course, if you find yourself at a dead end, wondering what your passion is, how to find it or if you even have a passion (spoiler alert: you do! We were all made for passion in our lives!), you’re going to want to spend some time mulling this over. To help you out, I created a workbook last year for my Goal Digger Series that will help you dig deep and figure out what is calling to you. And, because I love seeing women pursue purpose in their lives, I’m sharing that with you all for free! Click here to get your copy!

Now, the tough part: How to make room for passion in your life. It may seem impossible at times to imagine fitting anything else into your life, but I promise you that making room for your passion will not feel overwhelming. If something is truly important to you, you can find the time,  money, energy or space to make it happen. So, if you’re going to make room for something in your life, why not let it be the thing that fills your soul with love and light and makes you feel alive?

Here are my suggestions:

Decide how big a role you want your passion to be in your life

Discovering what you are passionate about can be really exciting. You may want to completely overhaul your life and make it a primary focus. Or, you may want it to be something that you quietly pursue on the side. Only you can decide if the timing and circumstances are right for you to make a complete career change, or to incorporate it as a side hustle or fun project. Once you can get clear about what you want out of your passion, finding room for it is much easier.

Schedule it

Research has shown that you are much more likely to commit to an activity, whether it is a weekly exercise regime or working on your passion projects, if you create a regular schedule. A regular schedule will look different for everyone. The key here is that it is something you block out in your day planner or calendar and you commit to showing up.

Look for empty space in your day

Scheduling time for your passions is important, but what if you feel like you don’t have time? Try  looking at the way you spend your time now. Are there blocks of time that are “empty”? These might be times that are filled with watching TV, siting around or scrolling through social media. Wouldn’t it be great if these empty blocks of time were opportunities for you to enrich your daily life? Even if it is just for 20 minutes in the evening in between dinner and the bedtime routine.

Start small

I introduced writing back into my life by journaling while I sipped my morning coffee. Eventually, I started finding more and more time in my week to spend writing until it became time that I schedule each week. What works for you? Are you an early bird or a night owl? Could you benefit from a small amount of time each day or a large amount at the end of the week? Also, don’t feel like you have to go from zero to 100 all at once. Most of the enjoyment is in the process, so start small and allow yourself to grow.

Add it to your current work or home life

You might be surprised to find that there are already areas of your life where you can incorporate your passion. The more I wrote and interacted with others, the more I realized I was drawn to helping people. This lead me to look for opportunities to reach out. I started organizing workshops and presentations at work and I started collaborating with others. These opportunities were already there, but approaching them through with the ideology that I would be pursuing what made me happy, made it much easier to take on these extra projects.

Include family and friends

If your passion is food, ask your spouse to take a cooking class with you. If you love photography, volunteer to take pictures at your next family gathering. Look for ways to include those you love in your passion. Not only will it make finding the time more accessible, but sharing your passion with others makes you more likely to follow through.

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