Being passionate is important in life, but it also can be difficult to deal with. Just like with all good things, too much of it can be damaging. However, passionate people, overall, do live happier and better lives than the average individual.
Passions give us purpose, but more than that, they make us feel that we have purpose in our lives. Being passionate isn’t just about knowing – it’s also about feeling. That’s what makes passions so important; they make us feel that we’re on the right path in life and give us hope for a happy and exciting future.
Passionate people lead significantly different lives from their less-than-enthusiastic counterparts. Here are 10 things that passionate people do differently and the good and bad that comes of it.
1. Start their days early.
It’s not that passionate people don’t enjoy sleeping – they do. It’s just that once they’re up, they get excited about the work ahead of them. Even if the particular project or tasks they will be working on may not excite them, their future aspirations and the passion they have for what they do drive them to get out of bed rather quickly. Passionate people are all about doing and you can’t do much if you spend half the day sleeping.
2. Always have their passions on their mind.
They’re basically obsessed – hopefully in a healthy manner. Healthy passions are healthy obsessions. You can’t keep your mind from returning to the topic and can’t help but get excited by those thoughts. Passionate people live in a world in which the few things that matter to them in life basically involve the passions they love.
3. Get excited more than the average person.
Passionate individuals may not always feel excited – no one is excited all the time – but when they get excited, they get excited more fully, for a longer duration and, overall, more frequently.
It’s because they have more in their lives to get excited about. They devote their time to usually one or two things and therefore make more progress than those who split their time amongst many things. The momentum keeps them excited.
4. Get pissed off and emotional more than the average person.
Just as the passionate get excited, they also can come off as very moody. They go from happy and excited to pissed off and miserable. Because they are passionate, they are much more emotionally connected to whatever it is they are doing – so when things go well, the world is a beautiful place, but when things go awry, sh*t gets real very quickly.
5. Willing to risk more and put more on the line.
If you’re passionate, you have a clear understanding of what your purpose in life is – if only your purpose for that very moment. For this reason, you give much less importance to other things. Therefore you’re willing to risk more for the thing(s) that you find most important, that you are most passionate about. Those that are passionate are much more willing to give up things that don’t fall in their scope of passion.
6. Devote their lives to their dreams.
Life is filled with things worth doing and things not worth doing. That which we are most passionate about is what we believe to be worthwhile, everything else seems to be wasteful and lacking. Passionate individuals gradually gravitate towards their passions and away from the rest that life has to offer. They know what will make them happy and are willing to ignore the rest.
7. Surround themselves with their work.
People say that it isn’t good to bring work home. However, for the most passionate, work is home. It’s not possible for these individuals not to bring their work home because their work is in them and reflects in everything they have and do. But it doesn’t feel like work to them. It feels like life.
8. Can’t help but talk about their projects.
They know that you probably don’t want to hear about it because you hear about it all the time, but they don’t really want to talk about much else. And even if they do, their conversations almost always steer back to their passions. They can’t help it because they don’t see their passions as separate from themselves; they are their passions.
9. Tend to either be pushing ahead full throttle or are completely still.
Passionate people aren’t always the best at balancing their lives. They get overly excited and push themselves to their limits. They love working and love moving forward quickly. But they eventually do run out of steam and crash. Only the seasoned and wise passionate individuals have learned to balance havoc and calm in a healthy manner.
10. Always think positively about the future.
Their minds are always looking ahead, looking at what can be instead of what is. This has its good sides and bad, but nevertheless, they are always thinking about their next move.
The one great outcome is that they always have something to look forward to and are excited to make it happen. As long as they remember to hang around in the present from time to time, they don’t run into too much trouble.
Photo credit: The Aviator
For More Of His Thoughts And Ramblings, Follow Paul Hudson On Twitter And Facebook.
