Passion and Procrastination

Now this is a topic that we can all identify with haha. I’ve developed a formula that I’d like to share with you all:

Dream – Drive = Procrastination

I believe the biggest reason for procrastination is that we lack the drive and focus we need to accomplish our goals.

The other thing I’ve discovered is that your drive must come from or be your passion for it to be long term or sustainable. This is because our passions very rarely change. “I was passionate about human trafficking for 5 years, and then I came off it” is never a sentence that is uttered. “I was interested in human trafficking for 5 years, and I came off it” is a more probable statement. Your interests change, and if your decisions are made on your interests, when that interest changes, so will your drive. If you are going to overcome procrastination and giving up, your drive must be based on a passion that burns deep inside you and never goes out. We generally will procrastinate about things that we either are not interested in, have lost interest in, are not passionate about, or have let the reality of the job/situation cloud our passion.

 

We sometimes also make the mistake of thinking that our daily activities must be directly linked to our passions, when our passion should fuel our daily activities. Take this example; you may be passionate about fashion and want to be a fashion designer, but are currently stuck in a job at a call centre. Your passion to be a successful designer should make you work hard wherever you are to be a success because you may need the reference, if you become successful your old co-workers could be a great publicising tool for you or not, and it is providing you the money that you need as a basic at the moment to fund the bits of your dream that you can actively work on. You are also learning interpersonal skills and working with different characters. The call centre job is a stepping stone to realising your dream, and your drive or passion will mean that you do not slack wherever you are because it is a stepping stone.

So here are a few tips to finding your drive and keeping it strong:

1. Identify your passion and evaluate your relationship with it
   • Ask yourself:
     1. What is my passion?
     2. Does everything I do reflect my passion at the moment?
        • This question is about evaluating the relationship between your passion and the world around you. If your passion is fighting injustice, do the things you are involved in reflect this?
     3. Is my life a testament to that passion?
        • This question is about evaluating the relationship between your passion and yourself; are you personally connected to your passion or disconnected from it? Can someone look at you and your character or think about you and how you are with yourself and others and know your passion? Do you align with you passions? Have the choices you’ve made aligned with them?
2. Identify the drive or passion thieves in your life
   • Speaking to too many people about the specific plans related to your passion. We’ve heard this many times before but not everyone is equipped, supportive, or ready to hear your plans. Sometimes they can be haters, sometimes they can be naturally negative people, sometimes they can just be too focused on their passion to support you with yours. Protect your passion jealously and don’t let others kill it for you; speak to those who you know will support and help.
   • Being involved with too many unrelated things. Let me start by saying that having things on the side that are unrelated are good and can be a great source of rest, however if you are constantly involved with 5,000 things that sap all your energy and resources leaving you with nothing left to give to developing your passion, there is a problem.
   • Social life & social media. As great as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc are, they are great time stealers and distractions. Set time limits to how much time you spend online in a day. Also, it isn’t every party or “turn-up” you have to be at; don’t spend your life chasing a social life that leaves your passion unfulfilled (unless your passion is to be a celebrity blogger/gossip columnist).
   • People pleasing. Now this one is difficult. When a  friend or family member asks you to do things for them it is very difficult to say no. In fact, sometimes we offer our selves for things we shouldn’t be involved in because of how we may be perceived if we do or don’t get involved. This is sometimes good, but there is a balance! Your passion shouldn’t always be what suffers! Check out my blog post about thinking about yourself too, to shed more light on this.
3. Grow and Develop your Passion
   1. Research your passion. Learn your craft. There are free courses all over the internet and on YouTube. If you are constantly learning about it, your passion can not die.
   2. Keep trying. I saw a poster that said the creators of angry birds made 51 other games before they found success with angry birds. The Wright brothers built seven types of aircrafts and crashed each of them multiple times before they arrived at their successful flying machine
   3. Set goals, and share them with friends you can be accountable to. No man is an island. We weren’t built to be alone; we need community. Share your goals with people you trust who you can be accountable to and let them help you. Share your deadlines with them and don’t be annoyed when they check up on you; it’s for your own good.
   4. Remember where you are and where you want to be. Never lose sight of your passion. Never lose sight of where you are now in relation to where you want to be. The key is to never get complacent or too comfortable. Keep striving and pressing towards the goal.
   5. Invest in your passion. Start putting money away for that shop you want to eventually own. Pay for courses in line with what you want to achieve. You can tell a lot about someone by how they spend their money, and if your paying for something and you understand the value of money correctly, that’s sometimes all the incentive you need to “get to work”.

In short, when you find your passion you will find your drive; when you find your drive procrastination will be less of an issue.

I hope this helps?

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