If you’re like me and you LOVE food, raise your hand please 🙋🏾♀️. I take every opportunity to feed my body to give it the energy it needs so I can go about my day. I’m not always diligent with this (missing meals due to busyness, not eating the right foods, etc.) and it doesn’t do my body any favours. I end up dragging my feet partway through the day and just want my bed. My body starts to feel sluggish and my brain feels slow so everything takes twice as long to do. I like to think our brains work the same way as our bodies in that if you feed it good things, it will produce good things. When we feed good things to habits/hobbies, the outcome is usually something that brings joy and the more you feed it, the more energy it has, the more it consumes and the more it grows.
My reflections over the past year have really forced me to evaluate how I spend my time outside of my usual activities. as a full-time professional with responsibilities outside of work, I have come to treasure the time I have after work and do what I can to ensure I am spending it on building/developing hobbies/habits things I am passionate about. I realised that the majority of my time in education has been spent developing my other passion which is now 'funds' my lifestyle. With my career now developing steadily, I have now been focused on other passions which may very well overtake my HR profession. Over the last year especially, I noticed that by spending more time on other things that I was passionate about, I began to learn more and this has made my downtime more productive.
There were a few years where I didn't read as much as I used to (someone introduced me to Netflix) and this really bothered me. I was determined to be more disciplined with my reading because it fed into other things I was passionate about, such as writing. Once I began to make this my focus again, I started this blog and here I am today. I didn't just start reading anything though - like I said, reading linked into other things I was passionate about. Reading the bible became my priority over anything else, followed by reading books based on Christianity and then crime thrillers, which are my favourite book genre. The order of my reading preference is intentional because there are times when we are feeding the things we are passionate about with the wrong things and we don't notice because we still enjoy it. If you gave me a collection of books by Jo Nesbo, I would have the biggest smile on my face and would happily hibernate for a few weeks. What other value would this bring me except for a few moments of happiness, doing an activity I enjoy? On the other hand, reading a book about prayer would also give me endless joy and allow me to have a deeper understanding of another thing I enjoy doing.
This post is really to encourage you to evaluate what & how you are feeding your passion/habits and take stock of the value this is bringing into your life. I watched a documentary about Bill Gates (streaming on Netflix now) which motivated me to do more of what I am doing, spending time learning about other things I am interested in, that can bring value to me and to others. So far in this post, I have focused on what value your passion/habit can bring to you but it's important I highlight that the value these activities bring to you might also be useful for someone else in your circle, or someone you are yet to meet. Since I started this journey to be more productive and spend more of my time of things I would consider meaningful, I have found that God has granted me many more opportunities to be a blessing to those around me and I have found some fulfilment in this.
Once you begin to feed on the right things, you will find that you have the energy to keep going, even after a long day at work. I have had an incredibly busy week and after spending most of today running errands and completing life admin tasks, I sat down to write this post and will go to bed now with a big smile on my face, praying to God for lots of inspiration to write more posts like this. There are so many stories about people who choose to pursue and develop those things they are truly passionate about and it leads them to the most unexpected places. I have started 2 other blogs in the past because I am passionate about writing but I have never been as fulfilled as I am now, writing about things that are so important to me, and hopefully establishing a connection with others who visit this site. If you haven't yet, start to make time for the things you are passionate about but have maybe put aside for various reasons, time being one of the most common reasons. Like I said in the beginning, when you feed something, it grows and requires even more to continue growing (motivation).
I'd love to hear some of the things you are passionate about so please leave a comment and let me know!