Ep.68: Pursue Your Passions as a Multi-Passionate Creative (and Avoid Burnout!)

Are you a multi-passionate creative who loves to jump from interest to interest but find that you're starting to burn out trying to keep up with everything? Me too!

 

Listen to this solo show where I recommend three methods to avoid or lessen burnout while still allowing you to pursue your passions.

 

Are you ready to set career goals for 2022? Listen to today's podcast for four steps to setting realistic career goals - even if you don't know what your new career will be!

 

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Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Welcome to go find outthe career switch podcast.
I'm Jennifer Jelliff-Russell author,career, coach, and speaker bringing you
actionable ideas from knowledgeable guestson how to successfully kick your fears to
the curb to go after your career goals.
You can find more episodes byvisiting go find out podcast.com.
Enjoy the show and go find out.

(00:27):
Welcome back to go find outthe career switch podcast.
I'm your host, Jennifer Jelliff-Russelland this is episode number 68.
And today's episode will focus onhow to avoid getting burned out
when pursuing it too many interestsas a multi-passionate creative.
But first let's jump into mypersonal update, which will also
give you an idea of why I neededto do an episode on this topic.

(00:50):
And that will let us rollright into the show today.
So one of the reasons that I'mtalking about avoiding burnout as
a multi-passionate creative is thatthis is something I struggle with
on an, on again, off again, basis.
For me, this burnout tends to pickup and become a larger issue right
around the end of the year when Ifeel like I didn't accomplish enough.

(01:11):
And then I have a flurry of activityat the first of the year where I
feel like I need to get everythingdone at once all at the same time.
In other words, I basically spentthis last January flailing around and
learning new things, barely writing,taking certificate courses, second
guessing my career goals and askingmyself just what the hell I'm doing.
It's sort of like how, likesome people decide one of their

(01:32):
resolutions is to lose weight.
So they join a gym in Januaryand then they go on a strict diet
and find themselves burned outand doing the workouts and eating
the things that they don't love.
But for me, it's finding that I'mpursuing career interests or learning
new skills, just because I feellike I didn't do enough in the past.
Though I set realistic goals for theyear, like writing and publishing
three to four books a year, whichworks for me, um, or creating a social

(01:56):
media following for my business.
Somehow I always seem to get interestedin new topics throughout the course of
the year and thereby add more and moregoals to my plate until I'm scrambling to
complete them all by the end of the year.
I'm just a naturally curious personwho loves to learn about new things,
but it's easy to turn this curiosityinto a passion for a new hobby

(02:18):
or business, which is where themulti-passionate creative piece comes in.
So a multi-passionate creativeis someone who has a variety of
passions, hobbies, or interests thatthey enjoy and have a talent for.
These folks find it easy to pick up newtalents or hobbies, and they usually
find that they just have a knack for it.
Now I'm not saying that thehobbies that I have are easy, but

(02:40):
I tend to pick them up easily.
If I take courses or, you know, jumpon YouTube and learn more about.
And I'm sure that if you're on TikTOK at all, you've probably run across
like ADHD TikTok and listening tothis, you might be thinking lots of
hobbies or interests - must be ADHD.

So a little disclaimer (02:57):
being multi-passionate doesn't automatically
mean that you have ADHD, but if you'renoticing some other signs of it and it's
affecting your life, definitely considerspeaking to a professional who can more
officially assist you or diagnose you.
Okay, steering away from ADHD talk now,because I am not an expert on that for me,

(03:17):
when it comes to being a multi-passionatecreative, many of my interests tend
to lead down the rabbit hole toother potential interests or hobbies.
For example, writing and publishing a bookled me to being interested in book cover
design, which I'm not terribly great at.
And then that interest in bookcover design led me to learn
about NFT design, just because oftheir underlying design aspect.

(03:41):
So I learned a little bit of designand created NFT just for fun.
And then thinking about NFTs or howto monetize designs led me to develop
an interest in how to create VR orvirtual reality worlds or games that
could maybe go along with my fiction.
So it's this like slippery slope that I'mmore than willing to throw myself down
because everything seems so fascinating.

(04:03):
And now part of me attributes the whole,like everything being doable to being
a millennial and being told that Ican do anything that I put my mind to.
Hey, which is, which is greatmotivation, but also dangerous because
there is so much to choose from.
And I don't want to bepigeonholed into just one thing.
And gen X, you probably get this.

(04:24):
But another part of me realizes thatmuch of this issue.- and let's be
honest, it can be an issue - comesfrom not having the self discipline
to say no to a new interest or hobby.
So let's talk about how to avoid lettingour multi-passionate creative interests
lead us to burn out while still allowingourselves to explore new hobbies.

(04:46):
So the first thing is to decidewhat your overall goals are.
This could be your goal for the year, orthis could be your overall life goals.
But if you have set goals that youhope to achieve, it's actually easier
to avoid going too far down the rabbithole and chasing a new talent or hobby.
Anytime you start to dive into anew hobby or interest, ask yourself,

(05:08):
is this interest taking me closeror further away from my goals?
If it's difficult to justify howthat new interest brings you closer
to your goals, hen sideline itfor now and come back to it later.
And if the new interest takes youcloser to your new goal, great.
It might be okay to pursue.
However, it's also important hereto make sure that you're being

(05:30):
totally honest with yourself.
Is this new thing or this new interesttruly taking you closer to your goal or.
For example, you all knowthat I really enjoy using and
making content for TikToks.
Now, if my goal this year was simply towrite three to four books a year, then
going down the rabbit hole, learninghow to create great TikTok content

(05:51):
would not bring me closer to my goal.
In fact, taking the time to learn thisstuff actually takes me further away from
that publishing goal, because it takesup time that I could be spending writing.
But because my other goal is to actuallygrow my social media following in
order to sell more books, then takingthe time to understand how the app

(06:11):
works and how to grow my following onTik TOK is a good interest to pursue.
Now, I'm also interested in learning moreabout how I can leverage Pinterest as a
social media tool to get more readers.
But I feel like that would be takingtoo much of my writing time if I pursued
learning both TikTok and Pinterest.
So for now, I'm focusing only onTikTok and sidelining Pinterest,

(06:35):
thus avoiding a little bit of burnoutby not spreading myself too thin.
By being clear in your overall or ayearly goal, you can be more realistic
with yourself on the return of investmentfor pursuing that new interest or
hobby and determine if it will reallytake you closer to your goal or not.
So moving onto the second suggestion,I don't know about you, but it seems

(06:57):
that everywhere I look influencers aretalking about creating easy passive
income, and I almost always get suckedinto it, like almost every time.
But for example, things like, you know,create a journal to sell on Amazon
with just five easy steps or take thiscourse on using procreate and create
and sell stickers, or become a virtualassistant and start making six figures.

(07:20):
To a multi-passionate creative.
These might be intriguing enoughto shell out some money for a
course on how to do this stuff.
I mean, you're learning anew skill, which sounds fun.
And Hey, if that skill can earn you money.
Great.
The problem comes when you continually getsidetracked by these shiny new ideas and
then drop your current thing in order topursue the new, more interesting thing.

(07:43):
If this becomes a cycle, then you neveractually gain the skills to build a
business or make money from that thing.
Instead, you just end up hopping fromnew interests to new interests, hoping
that one of them will let you make money.
To me, the way to deal with theseissues is to look at the underlying
interests in those money-makinghobbies that pique your interest.

(08:05):
If it was let's say makingjournals and designing stickers,
then I would say that underlyinginterest in those things is design.
Then go back one step and ask yourselfif learning general design or how to
use a specific design software willtake you closer to your overall goal
that we talked about back in step one.

(08:26):
And third, I know that this seemssort of counterintuitive, but if you
are a multi-passionate creative, thenyou thrive on learning new things.
So make sure to give yourself permissionto pursue new interests with a caveat
of either a time stipulation or atime limit, or how many new things
you're allowed to pursue per year.

(08:48):
Sometimes allowing ourselves to pursuenew interests can really boost our
creativity and actually helps usre-engage with our overall goals.
If that new interest can be tied intothem, you don't want to stifle that
creativity by being so rigid that youdon't allow yourself to try anything.
Instead, give yourself some ground rules.
These will be completely unique to you.

(09:10):
Some examples might be setting how manynew hobbies you're allowed to pursue
per year or giving yourself a literaltime limit on how long you're allowed
to spend on this new hobby beforerefocusing on other tasks that take you
closer to your overall goal, or maybechallenging yourself to figure out how a
new interest can tie into your overall.

(09:31):
You may have to try a few differentrules to see what works best for you.
So just to kind of recap, in order toavoid burnout as a multi-passionate
creative, you can revisit your overallgoals and determine whether that new
interest brings you closer to your newgoal or further away avoid pursuing
a new passion solely because youfeel you might make money from it.

(09:52):
And finally set some groundrules for yourself that still
allow you to pursue new interestswith left and right limits that.
Definitely reach out via Twitter,Instagram, or Tik TOK and let
me know what works for you inkeeping yourself from burning out
as a multi-passionate creative.
All right.
That's our show for today.

(10:13):
Join me next time.
When I interview Ariana Dugan fromInterplay Learning about how their
online and virtual training platform iscreating a safe space where more women
can become trained in the trades industry.
Until then, go find out.
Thanks for listening to the show.

(10:34):
I hope the information helps youtackle your own career switch goals.
You can let me know what you thought ofthe show by messaging me on Instagram at
go find out career switch or commentingon one of my TikToks at EvergrowthCoach.
That's it for today now go find out.