Trialing a passion full-time

I tried it with my blogging. I did it full-time. I thought it was the answer to all my dreams.

You know what happened?

I sat at home and didn’t write. I watched movies, read books and told myself“You got all the time in the world pal to blog, so take it easy.”

I always had another thing to do before I could write.

Some days it was meditation, the gym and then helping my girlfriend with something because I love her very much. All that full-time blogging didn’t look so great.

The output was less.

Acting out of desperation kills the art

The reason most of us work a 9–5 is obvious: money.

When you are forced to monetize your passion the desperation to make a living often kills all your creativity, drive and passion.

You end up taking shortcuts because you have to make money from your passion. I found that working 4 days a week at a normal job I liked and doing three days of blogging as a weekend warrior was the right balance for me.

The balance for you will be different. The equation is made up of making money, passion, art and time.

Passion needs room to breathe and suffocating it with desperation will not work.I’ve tried many times.

A day job compounds your after-hours activity

The very fact I have to go to work is what helps my passion for blogging.

You might be thinking “How the heck can an office job possibly help me work on my one and only passion?”

I thought that way too. What I realized is that on the days I go to my 9–5, I come home with a sense of hunger.

I have all this energy built up inside of me that is just waiting to get out of me. It’s this energy that has helped me write many viral blog posts.

At work, I experience lots of things which I then blog about when I get home. My day job taught me leadership and I could never write about that topic if it wasn’t for my 9–5.

Life is very boring when all you have is never-ending space in front of you that you can piss up against the wall and take for granted.

If you do it full-time and you’re burning out, what’s the point

Speak to any musician who has played to thousands of people as their day job and they’ll tell you that doing their art full-time burns them out.

Even when you do what you love full-time, you will get bored and there’s a chance you will burn out. If all you do is burn out and end up hating your passion, what’s the point?

Weekend warriors get to take breaks from their passion and embrace a forced distraction called a career.

This career becomes an acceptable excuse for being distracted which then helps reduce the chance of burnout.

You can’t see your passion the same

When I started blogging, it changed me.

I can no longer read something without thinking about writing my own point of view. I find it hard to read because my busy mind starts thinking about what I can write myself.

Ask travel writers what it’s like to go on a holiday.

They’ll tell you that when they go on holiday, they are stuck in their critiquing mode and can’t actually be present and aware of the holiday they are supposed to be having.

You end up spending so much time living your passion that you can’t enjoy it or think with a clear head about how to create the work you’re so passionate about.

Removing the blocks is the key

Weekend warriors have the obstacles they encounter temporarily removed because of their day job.

By being away from your passion, you can think about the obstacles you encounter with an objective mind. The solutions to the obstacles you’ll encounter in your passion often stem from stuff you see at work.

I found this to be the case when I was trying to write better and heard a story at work from a customer about how they approach the creative side of their business. They described their flower shop Instagram page to me and how it’s supposed to make the person viewing their page feel a certain way.

I realized that this was the same thing I was trying to do with my blogging.

This customer, by the way, was someone that was swearing at me and wanting a refund.

I thought this situation would be the last place in the world that I would find the solution to an obstacle I was encountering with my blogging.

Don’t disregard how valuable unrelated work experiences are to pursuing your passion.

It’s scratching an itch

The weekend warrior like me has something that the full-time hobbyist doesn’t have; we’re scratching an itch and choosing to follow our curiosity.

The outcome we weekend warriors are looking for is not defined, has no boundaries, can take as long as it needs to and is not a primary source of income.

Curiosity is our north star.