On Passion Projects

Another ingredient to the Happiness recipe?

The House Maid (1910) by William McGregor Paxton. A fine example of never missing an opportunity to learn? Ha!

I do believe that having a project (or two, or a gazillion) is one of the ingredients in the recipe for happiness. In my own experience, they give me energy just like exercising does – “if you find yourself tired all the time, try exercising” as they say. At any given time, I have multiple projects on the go and I juggle between them. Yes, sometimes I miss the deadline I set myself of course, but I still get the energy out of them.

I have a friend whose husband was an accountant. He worked regular office hours and he drove to and from work, with the rush hour traffic to boot. He loved cooking and the thought of coming home to cook, nay, create food energised him. Isn’t that amazing?

Have you ever noticed that even the shyest person would suddenly turn lively the moment they talk about their passion project? The thing I find even more intriguing is that even when I’m not interested in the project, I’d still find the person interesting. There is something  about people who put passion into what they’re doing, the “energy” is different – allowing few exceptions, of course.

I am curious if Passion is really the key here. Do we need passion added to whatever project we’re working on to get that energy, that spark? For those working in a corporation, working on a project assigned to them, would they get the same spark knowing the project is not of their choosing? The reason I’m questioning Passion here is because I’ve been doing a bit of an “experiment” myself.

My Buttercup mini project that was born out of the used-to-be dreaded task of weeding.

Like most people – if not all, I don’t enjoy doing chores, but a chore is a chore, it needs doing and it’s hardly ever “fun” – unless it’s cooking, I love making food, I’m a creative after all (creator? That makes me sound like God haha!). My trick was to pop my headphones on – I’d have podcasts or music helping me get things done. While the headphones do help with that, I wondered, could I make it even better? Because I don’t think I’m giving my brain a much-needed break to engage with itself, without outside stimulants. Could I make myself less indifferent about the chores or even look forward to doing them? Enter Scott Adams and his Reframing book.

So I started toying with the idea of reframing chores. I thought what gives me energy? Projects. The excitement of a project is a dopamine rush. And yes, chores to me have become less of a… well, chore, and I don’t dread them anymore. I used to see chores solely as a currency to “buy” my “me” time, while it worked it didn’t make the work less unenjoyable. Now, I still use my old reframe but I upgraded it by adding a new one; I see them as a project, and that actually makes me look forward to a job well done – this gives me a boost of energy like I was tackling a passion project. I’m not saying I’m now passionate about chores and nor am I saying that people would find me fascinating if I waxed lyrical about cleaning the bathroom, but hey swings and roundabouts, eh?

So, I guess, if I were to give you a tip for ticking off the difficult tasks on your to-do list better, with more gusto (ha!), try reframing them as a project. Visualise the end result, do a bit of reading about it if you have to, get yourself hyped-up and let the dopamine flow and do it! My main task last week was weeding the driveway and garden – I used to dread it with a passion, so I googled “how to get rid of weeds more efficiently?” And because curiosity got the better of me, I started learning about all kinds of wild weeds in my garden, I turned it into an opportunity to collect knowledge, why not eh? A project out of another. I ended up looking forward to doing the chore as I got to notice and learn about my surrounding, from the plants to the birds and the bugs.

There was this friendly little robin who accompanied me in the garden. He was not bothered by my presence at all, in fact he was happily chirping and strutting around me. He made me smile.

All this is to say that I notice from my observation that people are happier when they’re productive, producing something. Be it a progeny, a book, a blog post, a poem, a painting, a company, a clean/tidy house or garden… or even a meal, like in the case of my friend’s husband. Were we then created to create? Destined to contribute, big or small, to the collective?