Finding Your Pockets of Pleasure

Find Your Pockets of Pleasure!

Passion vs. Career

When it comes to pursuing our hobbies and things that we truly love, many of us put these away when we begin progressing in our career. After all, a career is to be taken seriously – our hobbies can wait, so we think!

Some of us are blessed to be engaged in a career that we truly love, in which case, life is bliss. We engage with our work playfully, bringing all our strengths into our work. We find deep meaning in what we do. Some of us could be so much engaged with our work, so passionate that the distinction between who we are and what we do as work blurs. There is a bounce in our stride, a deep sense of connectedness with what we do – no distinction between Monday and Friday.

Poor Career Fit

However, the majority of us are not so lucky. We land up taking up a job that is not exactly what we wanted to do – there is no alignment. Some of us may not know what we really love. It is, probably, too late now to go back to what we love, so we think! We now work to pay the bills. We leave our hobbies and passions behind with the fervent hope that someday, we will put our feet up and resume the pursuit. A career seems like one long and hard road with little respite.

Daily pockets of pleasure

My suggestion is to find ‘pockets of pleasure’ every single day or at least regularly. These are islands of time that we purposefully discover within the day during which we engage in something we truly love. Instead of procrastinating for ever and hoping to resume pursuing our hobbies ‘when the time is right’, we can slip into the ‘right time zone’ on a regular basis.

In my case, I always loved writing and even when I was pursuing a full-fledged career, I found time to write small passages on a regular basis. I used to keep a small writing pad and a pen handy. As and when a new idea came up, I would make a note of it and develop it at leisure. It is a pleasure to imagine a thought develop into an article.

Even in the regular job, I was a part of the newsletter team in my office and later wrote for magazines and newspapers. With the advent of social media, we have all become publishers of content. Whether it is traveling or reading or writing, I have been able to find ‘pockets of pleasure’ on a regular basis.

Do what you love

Pursuing something we love is a great stress-buster. It provides us with the energy to deal with things that are not fully aligned in our life. The power of a serious hobby cannot be underestimated.

There is immeasurable joy in doing what we love. If our careers do not allow us to pursue what we love doing, we need to find our ‘pockets of pleasure’ to do what we love…regularly.

After all, if we do not allow for this, who will?

 

As part of Career Coaching, I help individuals find what they are good at and help them reinvent their career and future. I use the 5 Questions & the Victory List techniques. Interested? Contact me at [email protected] and let’s reinvent your future.