Blogging to find Passion

When asked: “What am I passionate about?”, I hesitate because several things come to mind including travel, anything that requires being creative (including crafting and writing), and cleaning/organizing.  An answer of several things gives me real pause.  If I truly am passionate about something shouldn’t there be one single thing that I can say with utmost confidence that I am passionate about versus several things that I think, but am not certain, that I am passionate about?  I struggle with the idea that these are the things I truly am passionate about and I don’t know exactly why.  Something simply does not sit well with me when I ponder this topic.  I doubt my answers and myself and do not feel at peace because of it.

While I’ve toyed with the idea of blogging, the mental turmoil of this question of knowing my passion drove me to make the concerted effort to blog.  Writing has always been a form of therapy for me, being the easiest way to get my thoughts and feelings out of my head and heart where it usually feels all jumbled up and difficult if not impossible to articulate verbally. Why blog instead of journal or free write for myself then?  Because I know myself and unless I forcibly try to hold myself accountable, then I’ll give up and quit after some time.  Having an audience, no matter how few, gave me the pressure I felt I needed to hopefully follow through or at least continue trying and reducing the risk of giving up.

I knew I needed to create a habit of blogging in the first place and that would be a challenge because I constantly feel like I’m running around trying to play catch up with simple daily life.  I travel A LOT, by choice, so I’m not like most people who have fairly set schedules where I can say ok, from this time to that time on these days, I will dedicate to writing in my blog.  Speaking to a seasoned blogger in the past, she advised me to not feel pressured to blog all the time, but me being me, it didn’t take long to stress myself out about not focusing my time on blogging and getting posts published as I would have liked.  That is something I am actively working on because I find I’m more likely to post when I don’t feel pressured and stressed to do so and actually write for the joy and peace that writing gives me.

While the primary reason for blogging is for myself to find my passions in life, another dear friend of mine asked me, “What will my readers get out of you blogging about random ggibberish in attempts to find your passion(s) in life?” and I realized that I not only wanted to do this for myself but I genuinely hoped that my writing would actually benefit my readers.  There are so many times people have asked me for recommendations and opinions on things time and time again.  I realized I do have some knowledge that I could share that others may find valuable.  If even one person enjoyed reading, much less benefited from each post I publish, that would bring ultimate satisfaction to me – even if I was still struggling to figure out what I was passionate about.  Knowing I made a difference and impacted someone else, would make it all worthwhile.

I figured I would start by writing about ggibberish and see where it would take me.  Free writing is usually recommended to lead you to something much more specific and I’ve taken a few months to do that.  Am I more clear about what I am passionate about today than I was on January 1st of this year?  I can’t answer yes, but I can say I truly enjoy the process – the days I invest time in blogging are the moments I lose myself, time flies and I come out of it feeling stresses of the day released and actually energized.  (Aren’t those signs of doing something you are passionate about?!)

However, the nagging feeling deep inside to say with complete certainty what I am passionate about has been building and I’ve started in the past couple of weeks to actively work on coming up with a concrete answer, which is why I haven’t been as active in writing in my blog.  That’s not to say that I have not been writing – in fact I’ve been writing almost daily trying to bring myself to the answers I seek.

I’ve kept my blog in mind as I started this process of finding my passions and do intend to share some of it with the readers who are interested to read about it.  But since I am travelling for the next couple of weeks, it may take longer than I would prefer to dedicate time to work on a few different posts that I already have in mind.

I wonder, have any of you gone through this process personally?  If so, I’d love to hear from you and have a conversation with you!