BE UNIQUE
Having Multiple Interests in Life Doesn’t Mean I Lose My Focus
If we used to study multiple subjects at school, why can’t I do the same with the School of my Life?
It is not long ago when my thoughts became too overwhelming for me for mainly one thing, I have multiple interests and I want to pursue all of them. I know that we have limitations and we are given limited time in our lives but I can’t seem to cut lose any of them.
For the past 4 years, I have been enjoying my career in the hospitality industry, especially when it comes to relationships with customers and understand them and their dining experience. Then that journey brought me to my interest in coffee. I went to coffee expos, getting a hands-on barista experience, even I brew my own coffees and keep experimenting at home, exploring its diverse flavors. Then, I have been interested in User Experience but didn’t think it has anything to do with my job so I keep it silent for a while, now I can’t help it anymore and I ended up studying it. And that is not included my interest in writing, playing with words to connect us as storytellers.
These are my major interests and I just can’t let go of any of them. The more I kept running and pursuing them blindly, the more confused I become. I felt like I was running in circles. From that on I know I have to do something about it.
Finding the Common Ground
For some, they might be able to the common ground of these different interests. However, I just couldn’t see it myself. Some of them seemed to aim towards different directions and I could feel my head being torn apart. So at one point, I decided to stop running and stay still. I took the time to ask myself the question.
Why am I interested in this particular thing?
This single question leads me to other questions that helped me to analyze the importance of pursuing these interests in my life. “What is the contribution to my life if I pursue this? What do I need to do to achieve it? How can I see myself in the future with this interest? How far do I want to go pursuing this? What do I need to sacrifice?”.
These are some of the questions that I asked myself. To be honest there is no set rule in this. You can go as far as you want if that helps you to understand the ‘Why’ better
As an example of my experience, I found out that my random interests have the same common ground, ‘People Behaviour’. “So, why does understanding people's behavior matter to me?” I asked myself. I want to be able to put myself in any situation within social groups and understand people as they are. Embrace the differences in the world and the long history that comes along with it.
Finding a common ground might not be the final for some of us. For me, it’s a continuous journey. Along the way, I found and will find other things that interest me. Analyzing my interest helps me to set an anchor for the journey
I Can Do Anything but Not Everything
The amount of our interest can be overwhelming sometimes but don’t let these thoughts take the wheel. I began to notice the pattern, which one of these interests that have taken greater portions of my attention, they are the ones that I need to focus on. When I analyze, I limit myself to analyze five interests just for the sake of time. It can be different for you, there is no ground rule in this. Just keep in mind these resource limitations when you decide. Then from these interests, decide what do you want to achieve or explore? As for me, I always want to write about coffees and my observation in people and myself, especially when they interact with each other.
That is why I started to tap into Medium. And I am also currently saving to open up my small café. It is baby steps but I am getting there. It can be financial motivation, personal development, family, society, or whatever you want to achieve within these interests write it down, make it visual to you and don’t let it lose in the vague world of your thoughts. Keep asking for the ‘Why’s along the way because you don’t want the instant excitement drives your decision making
Begin with the bigger picture first. What do you intend to achieve within these interests? Sometimes I will come up with the most random things but just write it down every random achievement. Then, by keep asking the ‘why’ I can discard the achievements that don’t serve me and end up with more refined achievements. Be honest when you answer these questions. You might have lied to other people but it is another thing to lie to yourself.
Keeping My Focus
This is probably the most challenging part of having multiple interests, how do we keep our focus on this different thing? One way that helps me is to make everything visual, put it on paper, write it down, create colorful mind maps, draw it whatever that unleashes my creativity. After I am happy with the refined achievements, I set reasonable deadlines for all of them. So I have a more targeted direction to where I need to go.
The next step is to figure out the actionable plans. I begin with the simplest task like ‘write 200 words’ or ‘go to a coffee shop to try their cold brew’ and spread it into a timeline. Now I have a more visual blueprint to navigate.
I personally like to have a daily basis of blueprints. I like it to be as easy as possible to trick my self in achieving them. Moreover, I also found that having to alternate my schedule to work on multiple interests at once helps me to fight the burnout.
However, I have met people who operate differently. They like to set a weekly plan instead of daily or focus on one interest before they move on to the next one. Either way, different ways work for different people. Again, there is no right or wrong in this, you just have to discover which one serves you better as long as you don’t lose focus in your goals
Having multiple interests is also a chance for us to easily lose focus along the way. Even when I am working on a single task, the mind often knocks on the door and inviting me to play outside. One way of how I overcome this with the Pomodoro Technique. It is basically a method to keep your focus for 25 minutes to focus on working on a specific task and not letting yourself fall or distracted into anything. I see this as a focus exercise to strengthen my ‘focus muscle’. I realize the stronger my ‘focus muscle’ becomes, the more I can do within a certain period of time.
These multiple interests of ours can take all of our time if we don’t manage it properly. One thing that motivates me to manage these interests better instead of letting them dictate my life is I still want to keep the time for myself too (and yes this is also a part of my priority interests!). Having these deadlines and timeline help me to set a time for myself and recharge. After pouring our heart and effort into all of these interest, having the time to wind-down either by ourselves, friends or family is the only way we can refill the empty cup
Deadlines and time help us to commit to the process and achieve our goals within these interests. Without deadlines, we are in so much trouble. We might prolong our time to achieve these goals or even worse, never achieving what we wanted to do in the first place
Keep focusing on the path (whether it is a baby step or a giant leap). Learn from others but don’t dwell in comparing yourselves with others, especially those who are already ahead of you. Don’t feed the Lizard in your brain, Keep working and producing your work of art, they demand your focus to come true!
Knowing That We Are Special
We can be mistaken as people who have lost their focus when the fact is we are not. We are blessed to find the spark in other interests and we have the courage to pursue it. We are special! It’s not easy to pursue different interests and maintain the focus for it.
Will you make mistakes along the way? Of course, mistakes are inevitable for humans. If we don’t make mistakes, we are not living. Don’t get attached to the outcome, enjoy and appreciate the journey. Life is about exploration, not only to different places but within ourselves. There is no one way to live a life. You and I have our own way to explore our lives. There might be something great within us that is waiting to be discovered. So don’t give up on you and I won’t give up on mine too!
PS: If you ask why coffee relates to people's behavior, coffee is the most delicious social drink (I might be biased in this opinion) that connects us. I feel like a coffee shop is one of the places where people can have unfiltered human interactions. They can just be themselves (or may not, which is another cool topic for people's behavior).
