Trying to find your "main" passion is ruining your life
You have more than one dream life.
Multipassionate people, there is no “right” next step.
Many of us (me) have tricked ourselves into thinking there’s a “right” option out there, and we’re spinning ourselves around in tortured circles trying to work out which of our many interests is the right one.
I am preaching to the choir here, but it bears mentioning: believing in “the one” leads to a lot of pressure and indecision.
The good news is that an extraordinary life is generative – it’s always evolving and holds the potential for delightful surprises, such as unexpectedly starting to run a wine serving system business with your partner when you get back from six weeks in Egypt and Italy. For example.
So today I want to talk about the myth of “right”, and share a tool to help you get unstuck when thinking about your own extraordinary life.
You don’t know enough to follow your passions.
One of the world's leading scholars of human development, Bill Damon, has produced research that shows 80% of people don't really know what their passion is.
“Do what you love” is extremely unhelpful advice to people who feel they are interested in too many things and want to monetise them all – what career path includes interior design, eating cheese, and watching vintage films?
This same research showed that passion mostly comes after we try something, discover we like it, and develop mastery – which means TLDR: you have to get started first.
Think of your interests as baby passions. I am interested in many things – many of them completely hypothetical in my head: ceramics, piano, curating exhibitions. (None of which I’ve ever really done.) I am not passionate about them; in fact, I have no mastery in 99.99% of my interests. They are potential ideas on the “someday/maybe” list.
Finessing interests requires actively trying lots of things and sucking at many of them over years before they become passions you can follow. Which is why, for many people, the advice to follow your passion is terrible.
A good life is guided by purpose, not passion anyway.
Brianna Wiest wrote in 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think:
A good life isn’t passionate, it’s purposeful. Passion is the spark that lights the fire; purpose is the kindling that keeps the flame burning all night.
“Oh brilliant,” you might be thinking. “Now I need to find purpose too.”
But you’re overthinking this. You already know your current purpose. (I say “current” because it’s normal for it to change.)
Your current purpose may be to spend as much time with your kids as possible over the next four years while making $30,000/year to contribute to the household income. Your current purpose may be to travel as much as possible. It may be to live close to your parents as they age, or to write a novel or to prioritise your health. It could be to build a business to a certain milestone. It may be something huge and altruistic, but it doesn’t have to be.
You already know what’s important to you right now, even if you haven’t articulated it. So don’t let your random list of interests get in the way of the broader architecture of your life. Once you’ve decided what’s important to you right now, your options/passions/interests can fall into place around it. Or fall off the list altogether.
We need to choose clarity instead of waiting for it to suddenly appear.
A fun framework you can use to get unstuck.
Multipotentialites often freeze with indecision when thinking about all we want to do; many of us are avoiding making any decisions at all for fear that we are crossing out too many potentials.
I want to share a tool that can help you realise that loving many things is the opposite of restrictive. If you love three potential next steps equally, you cannot lose! How lucky are you?!
In Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans, there is an activity called the Odyssey Map I come back to again and again. The central concept is to produce three different versions of the next five years of your life.
The idea is that if your mind starts with multiple ideas in parallel, it’s not committing to one path and therefore “stays open and able to receive and conceive more novel innovations”.
But our minds can choose effectively between only 3-5 ideas, which is why the activity is to illustrate only three different versions you would happily live. Really plot them out. Add in work possibilities, but also travel and home renovations and big birthday celebrations. Life is rich and full of so many elements, and your Odyssey Maps should reflect that.
If you need a prompt for your three different lives, think about them like this:
Life #1: a track you are already on but embellished with delicious life extras
Life #2: what you would do if Life #1 suddenly disappeared – that profession doesn’t exist anymore, or you do something dramatic like move to a different country
Life #3: something you would do if money or reputation or being a grown up didn’t matter
Once you’ve done your three Odyssey Maps, really pay attention to what lights you up. What are the patterns? What is possible for you?
Using a simple framework such as the Odyssey Maps can help you make decisions about your options. To quote the authors: “when an option grows up, it becomes a choice.”
In next week’s edition, I’m going to be sharing another tool that I think is crucial in an extraordinary life: designing your ideal day.
In the meantime, here are some prompts to get you thinking about this week’s ideas:
Where am I mixing up interests for passions? What ideas are taking up space in my mind when I haven’t even explored them yet?
What is most important to me right now (my purpose)? What options does this remove from my list (for now)? What options make this purpose even easier and more extraordinary?
What are the common themes among my three Odyssey Maps? Which one feels most aligned with my current purpose?
This Week’s Life Curriculum
Bring in your extraordinary life, inch by inch, day by day.
DO | It is the perfect time to create a herb garden as big or small as your space allows – even just a small pot on the kitchen bench full of basil will fill you with joy.
MAKE | A foot scrub ahead of sandal season! Combine 60ml olive oil, 2 tbsp salt flakes, 1 tbsp bicarb, 2 drops peppermint and 2 drops lavender oil (or whatever oils you love most) in a glass jar and stir to combine. Soak your feet in a basin of warm water then gently use about 1 tbsp to gently exfoliate.
LISTEN | I have been doing a lot of driving in the past week – from Brisbane down to Melbourne, around regional Victoria, then up to Sydney (where I’m writing from today). I never thought I’d manage it, but I have now actually listened to all of The Ancients Podcast. A big, fat recommendation.
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Loved this instalment Phoebe! So many practical & very, very helpful ideas for squeezing every last drop out of life. Thank you. 🙏 💕
"The good news is that an extraordinary life is generative" is everything x