WOW!
I recall buying my domain and hosting over a decade ago. Excitement coursed through my veins. Blogging seemed fun and freeing to me. I dove in, wrote a high volume of posts and expected massive success to find me quickly.
I experienced the ultimate reality check; becoming a pro blogger involves:
- measured passion
- careful study
- strong mentoring from professional bloggers
- generously creating and connecting
- opening multiple streams of income
- 1000's of blogging hours over years
I did become pro eventually but only after observing how new blogger me was not passionate, poised and calm but excited, afraid and chaotic.
Do you begin ventures being filled with fear masked as excitement or measured, calming, peaceful passion? Passion i eager, enjoyable interest; not wild-eyed excitement. Most folks seem to dive into endeavors from energies of excitement, fear, greed and/or desperation. Most people struggle, fail and quit because folks do not begin campaigns calmly, confidently, intelligently and passionately from an eager but detached, patient, persistent energy.
I began blogging mainly because I feared going back to working a 9-5 job. Fear excited me into the delusion I could get rich quick with blogging. Struggles and failures years into my blogging career triggered my fears for facing, feeling and releasing. Eventually, I allowed my fun, measured passion and love for blogging pull me into creating, connecting and promoting myself into a professional blogging career from a relaxed, stable energy.
Warning Signs
Excited people:
- hurry
- rush
- feel desperate
- feel greedy
- work then quit, work then quit and continue this cycle for years
- expect overnight success
- expect to get rich fast
- expect to get famous quickly
- wing it
- begin with no mentoring from experienced leaders
- ignore good advice from experienced leaders
- trust their own inexperience
- delude themselves into believing their fear-based, rabid, wild-eyed excitement is calm, stable, anchoring passion
Passion is relaxed fun.
When your mind races forward at a mile a minute, that is fear and attachment manifest as wild-eyed excitement. When your mind feels serene, calm and you are doing what you do primarily for the fun, love and enjoyment of what you do, that is passion.
People mistakenly believe passion is hurrying, rushing, screaming, yelling, chaotic 15 hour days, 2 hours of sleep and hustling like a headless chicken but each state of mind is fear creating these insane habits.
If I genuinely love doing something from a passionate energy the work is the reward. Why would I need to hurry, rush, scream, yell, force myself to work late and to get up early, get little sleep and live in a perpetual state of chaos if my work is my reward? The WORK makes me happy. I do not NEED more work or NEED anything – money/love/popularity – from the work to be happy, so there's no need to push, strain, strive and burn out from a wild-eyed, rabidly excited, scared energy.
Passion is a good-feeling, stabilizing anchor keeping you focused on your love for your work. Excitement is a chaotic-feeling, electric cattle prod keeping you focused on MORE, MONEY, FAME, ACCEPTANCE, BEING GOOD ENOUGH and other factors not at all about the work, but outcomes-conditions-attachments you get after you put in the work, all flowing from fear.
Discern between passion and excitement to be happy, serene, calm and to actually enjoy your success.
