There are a lot of passionate people in the world. They are the ones that embrace their vocation, calling, or dream and will pursue it with discipline and enthusiasm. There are all-star athletes that balance practice, rigorous training, and game schedules. Or a food blogger that makes time to dive into recipe writing, preparation, and video editing. And activists that are passionate about helping other people. Turning our passions into profit is also possible and is discussed in more detail by skinpro.
We do whatever it takes to devote ourselves to a cause, activity, or talent because we are genuinely passionate about these activities. But chasing our passions can develop symptoms of anxiety.
Time Limit
It is said that life is fast-paced and is increasing steadily and the reality is that we have little time to fit all things in it. When we are chasing our passions, you need to put in space for other things and extra commitments despite having other priorities. Anxiety will eventually pile up, and life becomes out of balance with increasing feelings of stress leading to dropping off different things to pursue our passion.
To maximize our time, we should choose three areas for one day from this list: sleep, work, friends, family, and fitness. The important key is time management because poor management will slowly chip away at your mental health.
Internal Pressure
It is tempting to feel the expectations and opinions of other people, but the most prominent critic and the enemy are ourselves. If we think that we are not exerting enough pressure, we feel a cycle of anxiety and will eventually lead to us worrying about everything else. You will start to doubt yourself and even believe the negative opinions of the people around you.
The battle against high expectations is fierce, but it is safe to consider smart and attainable goals that will allow you to step back in celebrating your accomplishments. Remember that goals in life are like running in a marathon. You will start running at the beginning and will eventually reach the finish line of success.
Self-Identity
Internalizing and identifying your passion will know who you are. You can be a marathon runner, a writer, or a company executive, which will create more pressure to live up to the standard that you have built on because people’s expectations affect our mental health.
It is better to see yourself beyond your passion because we may never know if we excel at anything besides our passion.
Burnout
Extreme exhaustion and overwork is the result of pushing ourselves emotionally and physically while pursuing our passions. The brain is just like a muscle that loses strength after being overworked. Mental health can also be affected because our passion challenges us mentally with various emotions like anxiety and depression. To moderately chase our passions stress-free, we should balance our lifestyle and time. Lastly, we should keep our mental health in check to avoid exhaustion and overwork from too much stress.
