5 ways to pursue that passion project you have always been too busy for
As a perennially curious person, who tends to find almost everything exciting and interesting, my list of passion projects can get quite long. As a result, I have grown to become the quintessential jack of all trades, a person who dabbles in several pursuits, ranging from dance, building cardboard automatas, experimenting with creative code, and learning to bake!
While these interests are diverse, they stem from a source of passion, and I truly want to pursue each one of them, something I bet many of you can relate to. And like several of you, I have also grown the quintessential guilt in me, which comes with an ever growing list of unticked projects on the list. The excuses for not following through on these projects also seem to grow proportionally.
If you can relate to this dilemma, here are few tips, nay, rays of hope, that can help us passionate souls get started, and delve deeper into our creative pursuits while enjoying it. Let’s get started:
1. Set attainable goals:
We have heard this so many times: we vastly overestimate how much we can accomplish in a day, and underestimate how much we can accomplish over a period of time. Starting to learn the ukulele does not mean one needs to start learning to play songs right away! Set small, realistic and achievable goals based on the time you have on hand to consistently work on your project.
For Day 1, just learning how to tune your ukulele can be a wonderful starting point! And remember, committing to maybe just half an hour a week, or ten minutes a day is nothing to laugh at, especially when you look back a month or two from when you started!
2. Set monthly/ weekly goals:
Setting short term (realistic) goals in the direction of projects can really help! This can act as a great motivation to consistently work on the project. Looking at it as a challenge can help you get started, and keep at the task, because you have a completed project to look forward to. If those goals seem too overwhelming or challenging for you, try to break them down into weekly goals, or even reduce the size of your goal depending on how much time you can truly commit to the task!
3. Join a challenge!
One of the best ways to set a monthly goal and set some good accountability is to either start, or join a monthly challenge with a group of friends. When you have some company working towards your goals, it can feel a lot easier! Paper and Cardboard automatas are something I am passionate about, and so I joined a paper engineering 30 day challenge by Paper Crane Lab to help me create ten automatas in 30 days. Not only do I have accountability, I also get to see the work of other peers working towards similar goals, which can motivate and push me further. If paper engineering is a long ignored passion project of yours, take the first step right now, by committing to the challenge by DM-ing Paper Crane Lab!
4. Allow time for mistakes and experiments:
While being goal oriented is all fun and great, we have to remember that this is a project we are passionate about. So it is imperative we feel excited and learn throughout the process. Embrace the mistakes and try to experiment different techniques along the way. Say you started working on creative code. Sometimes, there can be errors in the code that can stop the program, or, turn a piece of code into an unintended piece of art. Learning about the techniques, and trying out things at your own pace can be an enjoyable way to improve your skills.
5. Don’t be afraid to ask for help:
Starting a journey can be overwhelming by itself, because we still need time to figure out how to begin. A really great way to drastically break through the overwhelm is to simply ask people for help. One of my long term goals was to perfect the splits, and no matter how many stretches I followed from Youtube, I was just not able to work through it, which led to demotivation. I signed up for body conditioning classes, and I can truly feel my body respond to the stretches, and I can see that I am closer towards achieving my goal!
In summary, pursuit of passion projects can rarely be straightforward. We have got to remember that at the end of the day, these are projects we truly want to work on, because they are things that mean a lot to us. Small steps in the direction, over a period of time can add up, and give us the satisfaction in the pursuits we desire. Here’s to crossing off pursuits from our list to make room for new ones!
