DESIGN A LIFE YOU LOVE

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about where I want to take Charm & Gumption, and how I want my career to look, long-term.

I started thinking about this word "passion". It's something that we're told we're supposed to seek and find and do in order to be happy, and the more that I thought about it, the more I realized that we maybe have been misled about its meaning.

Is your "passion" just another word for something that you love to do? By those standards, I discovered early on that I had a passion for performing. I also have a passion for good design. I am pretty darn passionate about the truffle fries at Burger Up. I am passionate about my dog and my husband. I really love shopping - does that make it my passion?

I think that you can be passionate about a lot of things, and the commonly-given advice to "find your passion" is misleading. I think we need to start thinking less about our action-based passions and more about our life's passion, which is typically more of a strong value in our lives.

For most of my life, I thought that I was meant to be an actress (as embarrassing as that is to type in this blog post) because acting scared and excited me in a strange way that nothing else did. It gave me butterflies and I loved it. I have sort of been pursuing it "on the side" for quite a few years now.

But I realized over time that in order to really pursue it, I would have to either move or be willing to travel constantly, work 12 hour days on set, hundreds of miles away from my husband and family, postpone having children until I got to a certain "level" where I felt I could take some time off (what / when would this be exactly?), and most likely have to partake in romantic scenes with dudes who are not my husband. The life of a working actor is not glamourous, by any means, and only about .000001% of actors are "famous" or "invited-to-the-Oscars" actors. Most are just normal people who work regularly on TV shows, commercials, etc.

It didn't feel right, but it was my "passion"....wasn't it?

See how following an action-based passion can sometimes lead you astray? If your action-based passion doesn't match up with your life's values, then it's not your real passion. Let me give you an example...

If you have the action-based passion: of "cooking", your real passion may be for
"sharing the knowledge of the health benefits of organic, locally sourced food with others"
or it might be
"teaching people the simplicity and power of a home-cooked meal and eating at the table with your family"
or maybe
"creating a delicious masterpiece out of everyday foods with simple tools".

See how the cores of those three passions are different? Just pursuing cooking rather than the core of why you are drawn to cooking may lead you into a life that you aren't happy with.

So what the heck is the point?

I finally narrowed down that my passion isn't "acting" or "freelance graphic design" or even "entrepreneurship". My passion, and the core of what connected those actions, was the fact that they were all career paths that required taking chances, not settling for the status quo, choosing your own path.

That's what I love. I love people who don't do what other people want them to do, just because of social pressure. I love people who choose a scarier path in order to be true to themselves.

That might be the musician living in a studio apartment whose parents wanted him to be a doctor, the CEO who quit her stressful job to pursue teaching yoga full-time, or the 28 year old who was climbing up the corporate ladder when she realized that she wanted to devote her time to being a stay-at-home mom and raising a family. It isn't limited to one specific career or life path.

It's about designing a life you love.

All this to say: that's the direction that you will see Charm & Gumption going. I have a lot of new things planned for this blog and the site, including a new design and some new product offerings (more on that later). You can expect more posts dedicated to helping you design a life you love, and less beauty and fashion related topics...because I love beauty and fashion, but they're not my real passion.

Let me know what you think in the comments, and thanks for reading this super long post! Also, my goal for those of you reading is to start thinking about your real passion vs things that you enjoy doing. Is there an overlap that you could take advantage of in your career? xo!