Peel the price tags off your passions

Want to know the secret to a more joyful life?  Peel the price tags off your passions. Case in point: A few years ago I was going through a divorce and discovered a new passion: Handcrafting jewelry. Initially, I just wanted to fix a broken necklace—and maybe a broken heart. When friends suggested I sell my jewelry, I thought why not? I hosted a pop-up shop, signed up for a local artisan collective, and put my pieces on Etsy.

Next thing I knew, I was dealing with the pressure and demands of delivering products to customers. The peaceful flow and sense of play I enjoyed while leisurely designing little pieces of wearable art all but vanished. It was no longer an escape into artistic expression. Instead, I’d  sucked all the joy out of it.

A different take on passion

Whether by nurture or nature, I got my passion for the creative arts from my mother. A true Renaissance woman, she seemed to excel at everything: From painting, sculpture, and figure drawing to cooking, baking, and sewing. In fact, at the age of 17, she hand-crafted her own gorgeous, full-length wedding dress (twice because someone stole the first one out of her locker) and two bridesmaids dresses to boot. She also served as the artist for her high school newspaper and yearbook and won several art awards.

Unfortunately in 1942, college or art school was a rarity even for talented women like my mom. Marriage was the ticket to freedom and the American dream. So she married her high school sweetheart as soon as he was discharged from the Navy. Then, after 25 years and six kids together, that dream went up in smoke when my dad died of a brain aneurysm at the age of 42. With no higher education, my mom supported the family as a clerk in a retail store. When I got older and went to college, I remember thinking what a shame it was that she’d wasted her passion for creativity by not pursuing a career in the arts. Meanwhile, my mother had a different take on it.

Wisdom from the past

My mom and I had long conversations about everything. She often reminisced about high school, where she discovered her two lifelong loves: My dad and her art. Reflecting on why she’d chosen family over career, she’d often share a piece of wisdom from her home economics teacher. I’m sure it meant a lot to her because it stuck with her for decades. She’d told my mom that her many talents would never go to waste because she could express them to create a beautiful home and life for her family.

My mother took that advice to heart. She was always busy creating something: Sewing herself everything from trendy suits to sparkly evening gowns. Creating us kids bathing suits in summer, coats in winter, and a whole wardrobe for back to school. Decorating our home with handmade pillows and curtains that rivaled any store-bought items. Whipping up homemade pizza and a rainbow of Christmas cookies for the holidays, always from scratch. Posting her little cartoon drawings on the kitchen fridge or tucking them into cards and letters.

There was not an inch of our home or lives that was not enhanced by my mom ’s devotion to her passions.

Embrace the laws of nature

As a life coach, I talk with smart, talented, passionate people every day who dream of finding a career that aligns with their passions. If they don’t, they seem to wonder where they went wrong. Especially if they spend any time on social media where it appears everyone is living the life of their dreams. Without a way to ‘monetize’ their passions, they put them on the shelf and forget about them.

The problem is that by putting a price tag on passion, they’re choosing to follow the laws of capitalism rather than the laws of nature. Like my own mother, Mother Nature cares nothing about the bottom line or the target audience or what’s trending. She creates for the sheer joy of it.

Cultivate a joyful life

I wish I could tell my mother that I understand now what she understood then: That exploring your passions is an approach to life, which may or may not have anything to do with how you make money. We can express our passion through the simplest of pleasures: Baking bread, playing music, watching a sunrise, knitting a sweater, reading a book, planting a garden, painting a picture, playing with a child, writing a poem. To place a price tag on any of these does not make them any more valuable.

Need more convincing? Study after study shows that spending time in joyful, creative activities also leads to better physical and mental health. Bonus: It’s fun!

Peel the price tags off your passion

Yes, we all need to earn a paycheck. If you’re able to combine work with a passion without snuffing out the joy you derive from it, that’s great. But if you’ve abandoned your passion altogether because there’s no money in it, it’s time to shift your perspective, peel the price tags off your passions, and pursue them with abandon.

Rather than look at your passions only as a source of income, embrace them as a source of joy in your everyday life. Peel the price tags off your passions by letting go of the belief that to be deemed worthy, they should earn either money or the attention of others. Your passion is for YOU. Never let your day job get in the way of that.

What are you passionate about? If you’re not sure, let me help you explore: Visit www.manifestwithmargrita.com.