Passion Deficit Disorder: Did You Miss a Day of Practice?

If I miss one day’s practice, I notice it.
If I miss two day’s, the critics notice it.
If I miss three days, the audience notices it.
— Ignacy Paderewski, Concert Pianist

Practice Makes Perfect!

It takes practice to follow your passions. We often get so caught up in getting the next thing done that we don’t stop and ask ourselves if what we’re doing is in line with our passions. Yes, you may have to miss a day’s practice but do you then remember to get back on track!  Do you continue to ask yourself “is what I’m doing going to take me closer to, or further away from, my passions … those things that I say are truly important to me?”

Missing a day, or even two, of practice is not about beating yourself up and feeling guilty.  It’s just information. It’s a message that you’ve taken a fork in the road you didn’t intend to. We all get lost from time to time.  Don’t waste your energy on feeling guilty … use that energy to pick up where you left off and take the next step towards finding meaning and fulfillment.

Are you Climbing up the Wrong Tree?

Are you Climbing the Wrong Tree?

Many Baby Boomers hit midlife only to discover that real happiness is still elusive even though they are successful and appear to have everything they want, or at least that’s the way it seems to everyone else. They are suffering from Passion Deficit Disorder.   

Without passion they are “climbing up the wrong tree.”  Many people get into jobs, careers, businesses and relationships because “they fell into them”, “it seemed like a good idea at the time”, “my parents said I should”, “I didn’t know what else to do.”  They can come up with numerous reasons for where they are in life but none of them involve “it’s my passion … my purpose … my destiny.”

If you’re climbing up the wrong tree, the best strategy at this point is to get down.  That makes a great deal of sense but we sometimes forget the basics and continue climbing, either in a career situation or in personal circumstances.  Instead of getting down and heading in a new direction (i.e. a different tree), we unfortunately attempt to develop other strategies to try and make sense of a continued climb up the same tree. 

Some of these “strategies” could be described as:

• Buying a longer ladder
• Forming a committee to study the tree
• Arranging a visit to other groups to see how they climb the wrong tree
• Lowering the standards so that the “wrong tree” can be included
• Hiring an intervention team to feed the tree and give it a new lease on life
• Reclassifying the tree as “the right tree”
• Hiring a partner to climb the wrong tree with you
• Buying a more sturdy ladder for greater speed in climbing the wrong tree
• Rewriting expectations for the tree
• Adding a second ladder on the other side of the tree for a different perspective
• Declaring that this smaller tree requires less of a cash outlay

If you would like to climb the “right” tree, the one that is perfect for you, contact me at evelin(at)blueprints4change.com and I’ll help you discover where that tree is and how to start climbing faster than you ever thought possible!