NickVmusic.net 1-22-17

Sustained Happiness from Your Passion

January 22, 2017

We read, see, hear all sorts of information online that talks about finding your passion and following your dreams and your life will be great if you do.

I agree, that you should build a relationship with yourself (I recommend a daily journal writing practice for this) to discover who you are and what you’re passionate about and even to make and execute a plan to pursue that.

However, I do not believe that, “if only I can do X then I’ll be happy...or, I’ll have made it...or, people will like me, etc.† 

That kind of thinking requires you to validate yourself externally, and makes your pursuit of happiness a simply binary ‘if, then’ scenario.

The problem with that is, it’s not sustainable.

So you reach X, are you happy?  Maybe for a little while, but then what? What’s the next ‘if, then’ you’re striving for?

Operating this way is exhausting and becomes a vicious cycle of emotional peaks and valley’s. Life has enough of those on its own, we don't need to manufacture more.

What most information on the internet doesn’t tell you is that those who pursue their passion and do sustain happiness as a result of their decision to reach for their dreams, work their tails off -- typically for years.

Their pursuit was hard, and it still is hard...meaning, they never really feel like they’ve ‘completed’ their pursuit of the their passion.

Those who have sustained happiness from their passion (or passions in my own case as well as others) are extremely motivated by their area of interest -- so much so, that even if it didn’t bring financial gain they would still find themselves drawn to it.  That’s a key first step.

Beyond having unwavering motivation they have a healthy relationship with themselves.  They know themselves well enough to know how they work best, how they are best able to accomplish their goals, etc.  This is probably the hardest part, and the reason much perceived success from these folks takes so long to achieve.

Along the journey their are personal emotional and mental forces at work to sabotage oneself.

The motivation from one's passion is relied on again here to push through the self-doubt, and further build that relationship with oneself to blast through the fear and resistance...and that’s the hustle!

The hustle, in my opinion, is the constant grind of pushing through the resistance everyday to achieve every small victory, and when those victories add up over time, real success and sustained happiness in one’s craft is attained.

In what way are you pursuing your passions?

Do you have the motivation, the relationship with yourself and the drive to constantly hustle?

If so, it will be a difficult journey. You will wish you could just be a 'normal' person and not have such passions, but every time you have small victories along your pursuit, you will feel far richer than anyone in the world for staying to true to the part of your soul you just can't shake.

Thank you for your time and attention!

I'm wishing you success this week!