A Lot Of Us Would Be Much Happier If We Only Treated Our Careers Like We Do Our Diets

Healthy and balanced

Success conversations are always filled with ideas of passion as an important factor in becoming successful.

We keep having to search for what we are passionate about and try to do things that we love.

But how many people are self-aware enough to know what they love?

When you look at people who claim to do what they love, it’s probable that they fall in either of these two categories.

1. They started doing that voluntarily or involuntarily at a very young age so much so that it helped their brains accept these as their passions because that story was accepted when they were still very impressionable.
2. They started as adults or in their teens due to some need but find that something that keeps drawing them back to that specific “passion” activity. They also face less resistance when they keep telling themselves that the activity they do is their passion.

For most people, however, contradictions and conflicts fall in the way. Many have more than one skill and struggle to choose between any of them.

What makes it worse is that there is an expansion of interests as more information presents itself.

You would think that the brain with all its mysterious complexity would recognize when we were stuffed with choices and temporarily block all the rest until we deal with the already existing ones. — But no.

Instead, all information is treated the same way. Taken in, matched with our experiences and beliefs, what is harmonious with these is kept and what is in discord is disregarded.

Many people are left with a dilemma in which they try to pick one interest out of the many that all require our attention.

Those who “manage” to go through and pick one have to keep convincing themselves that they are doing what they love. They willfully block other interests with these narratives of passion because underneath all that talk, there is a subconscious knowing that if they do not keep convincing themselves, other passions will soon take over and derail their efforts.

Many just cannot exercise this much willpower. Heck, the average person uses but little willpower even in situations of life and death preferring to have a little comfort in each decision made. It would be absurd for anyone to advise these people to find their passions.

What will they choose and what will be left behind?

I can almost always feel the desperation in people's tones and words when they begin talking about their passions. Someone has to even embellish childhood memories with profound recollections of these passions.

They have to go back and trace their love for something as coming from childhood because then, it will be a much deeper connection and hey, sunk cost fallacy will work as far back as childhood… right? The longer the better I would argue.

Being late to something makes you feel like an outsider. Look at the immigration systems. Immigrants from the 1930s are more native than immigrants from the 2010s. The same thing happens in career development.

So it would make sense if the passion you claim to have also had some trace of it in your childhood. Just one memory of it is enough to justify its existence in the depths of your soul.

It is folly to attach your identity to these human constructs. Interests are there for a reason and they do not need an early adopter recollection to justify their existence.

There is a tendency to think that pursuing more than one interest is being a jack of all trades and that leads you nowhere. That is partly true in the sense that, being a jack of all trades that is a master of none is nothing but desperately trying to do everything probably with hopes of seeing what works.

Throwing mud at the wall and seeing what sticks type mindset.

These people approach the work they do with a mindset that If you make enough attempts or guesses, some of them will be correct or useful.

This too is folly. It is desperate. It is irrelevant. This is gambling. It is not what I am talking about.

Exploring your interests is much deeper than making a bunch of guesses.

It is important for human development to get all the lessons it needs. The interests we have are the manifestation of the areas that need development. When the lesson is done, the interest will fall away.

When you are fresh out of college, the lessons you may need could be in an area of developing skills suitable for the workforce. Those lessons might also be in learning and proving to yourself that you can make money, support yourself and be useful in your community using the skills you have learned in school...

So for a fresh college grad, it makes sense to get a job. Anything that comes along will probably feel you with great enthusiasm as it is a proof of concept that whatever you have to offer works…

That might not be the case 2 years in and it will be natural for you to begin looking elsewhere. Even the money you make might be a lot but it won’t quench the desire to seek more…

When this happens, many people try to ignore it so they fail to get the development they need.

When this happens, that person should start seeking and finding out what to do next and allow those answers to go through. Ideally, if they have their finances right, they could have savings that can help them survive for 6+ months even if they had work. They do not have to act like their life depends on that job.

They can keep doing that job until the answers for the next course of action become clear. In most cases, we know what we should do but these things like jobs make us ignore that.

When it comes to following your interests there is no rule that says you shouldn’t focus on other interests besides the one you think is your passion.

I write, technically and fundamentally invest, play the guitar and piano, code, paint, sketch, play basketball, animate, sculpt, and so much more. Other things I have an interest in are flying planes, drifting cars, working with computer hardware, and so on.

I also love them all equally and the difference in preferences is negligible.

The reason I do them all is not because I want to see which one I can make money from. The reason is that each of them helps me to improve the quality of my character in a different way.

Basketball can keep me in shape and also help me become blazing fast with body coordination while music can increase my hand-eye coordination as well as musical sense.

When you look at my friends, they are spread across in terms of race, interests, religion, careers, and so on. This was possible because I have different interests that I pay attention to which helps me to meet amazing people that I would never have met otherwise.

Having people with different perspectives in your life also helps you enrich the quality of your life experiences. It is because of these people that I can learn how to use different perspectives to solve the same problems.

With approaches like these, problems stress me but little since I have several solutions. When it comes to making money, for instance, I do not have to burn myself out trying to make content that is in one area of interest.

I write here, but I have other digital assets that are a result of my different skills so even when I don’t make as much money in any of the interests in any given month, it doesn’t affect my livelihood that much.

I don’t understand why people think that diversification has ever been a bad idea. What I know is that lack of diversity is always the recipe for disaster as it is an indication of too much risk exposure.

This idea works in the markets, cultures, diets, and personal growth as well.

Instead of listening and trying to find what you love, make a plan that can allow you to follow the path of least resistance.

If I had a 9–5 job, I would probably not be able to do everything that I do every day and still have time for rest.

But I had to first create a plan that would allow me to survive as I do this.

Some people will find a lot of fulfillment in their jobs and that is amazing but those who don’t also need to make time to seek what gives them fulfillment and often times than not, the answer will be more than one thing.

Like a balanced diet is necessary for your development, balanced interests are also necessary for your development.

The issue then is not about trying to examine whether it applies to you but rather finding how you can improve your lifestyle and find time to explore your interests because they will help you improve the quality of your life.