Pick One? Or create a life around multiple passions

[Zedi]

As far as I can remember I've been quite adept at most things that I learn with regards to the arts whether it's drawing, painting or making music. I also find that my mind is overrun with ideas all the time for different things. One day/week it's one thing but then I think of something else (Like idea for an artwork or business or film or song). Funny thing is, nothing trumps the other. I think I just generally have a love or passion for creativity and ideas or just to be creative in some capacity. The question I have is do you think it's wiser to pick one thing and grind it out and see some "success" before beginning something else? Or would making time for all these pursuits with a tight schedule and routine be more effective? Anybody else have this problem? How much does spreading yourself out effect mastery in any one field? 

Edited January 5, 2018 by Zedi

[Nahm]

@Zedi build the practice of ‘zooming in and zooming out’. On one hand life is short so you should choose and get on it, on the other hand the now can be tapped, time exists only relatively. Use both hands. 

[Space]

1 hour ago, Zedi said:

As far as I can remember I've been quite adept at most things that I learn with regards to the arts whether it's drawing, painting or making music. I also find that my mind is overrun with ideas all the time for different things. One day/week it's one thing but then I think of something else (Like idea for an artwork or business or film or song). Funny thing is, nothing trumps the other. I think I just generally have a love or passion for creativity and ideas or just to be creative in some capacity. The question I have is do you think it's wiser to pick one thing and grind it out and see some "success" before beginning something else? Or would making time for all these pursuits with a tight schedule and routine be more effective? Anybody else have this problem? How much does spreading yourself out effect mastery in any one field? 

This is exactly the same for me. Too many ideas and things I want to create, and not enough time or focus to execute them. What has worked for me is to simply sit down and ask myself what I enjoy doing most, and what will be the best use of my time. There's no way I could do everything I want to do. What i've also found useful is to focus on doing small projects or 'small bets' that may only require a few months of time, or less, and thus don't require you to grind it out in the hope of getting some success. But, these small bets are big enough and challenging enough that they're developing your skills and actually making a difference, rather than just some half-assed piece of work you do in a day. For me this has just been working on a big painting over the past few months. It hasn't taken up loads of time, but has been very challenging at times. How good the painting turned out is not that important. What is important is that I sat down and actually created something.

So my answer to your question is to do neither, in a sense. Don't pick one thing and grind it out, at least until you have a much clearer idea of what it is you want to pursue. But also don't divide up your time for everything because the necessary focus and momentum required for making good art/music likely won't be there. Instead, as I said before, maybe try a mixture of these and do a bunch of different small projects which require time and effort and build your skills (they should be challenging), but aren't an all-out commitment. The aim is to just finish the project and learn something, rather than thinking about whether it's the right thing to be doing, whether you made the right decision etc. Anyway that's my take on it, hope this helps. Goodluck!

[Zedi]

 @Space Right?? It can be very frustrating because it feels like trying to do so much and you're running around getting nothing done sometimes. But I hear you, I guess it's like a sort of focusing and defocusing or zooming in and out like  @Nahm put it. Btw are there any books or something to that effect that you've used that have helped? 

[Nahm]

@Zedi There’s just so much detail and ongoings in life. It’s easy to get caught up. Meditation is the opposite, the zooming out, and then we have that tool or ability so maybe we don’t get too zoomed in as often. 

[BjarkeT]

Read so good they can't ignore you(it may help with clarification and the why) 

for how to be so good they can't ignore you i recomend reading deep work (it may help with the how) and maybe also some of deliberate pratice, cal newports and scott h youngs top performer course, scott h youngs rapid learner course, and ultra learning (from scott h young)  it may give a good foundation of what matters in a career and how you can get there

alternative maybe also read some of productivity (I recommend focusing on one thing at a time for maximum productivity)

i highly recommend choosing just one the reason why is that increasing the chance to get all the benefits possible from that career (if that what your passion is) if you chose serval different careers it may take a while to get some benefits because you have to spend more time to get equal good at all of them how ever with just one you could get extremely good at just one in the same time and have more benefits from it

for example better chance of more money as its likely you will get hired more often because you have more rarer and valuable skills, it may be hard to get that from many careers as your attention is divided to them vs all of that attention to just one career, it would just be many careers you are less skilled in vs one career you are extremely skilled in and you will probably also a bigger impact etc.

people like steve jobs, john williams, nikola tesla, franz liszt, albert einstein may be a good example (they really put their focus into one career or at least one area)

there is still good examples of people who where really good careers in many different fields like leonardo da vinci and issac newton but I don't think it will have as much benefits as getting really good at one thing (it may also be more satisfying as there is some research that says the better you are the better you will feel about what you do)

Edited January 5, 2018 by BjarkeT

[St Clair]

I encountered a similar issue whilst taking the Life Purpose course. I wanted to pursue writing, film, and mainly music, yet was also confronted by this notion of picking one thing and honing in. What I ended up with was a life purpose that encompasses all that I wish to achieve, and I'm flying with it so far, the impact statement being "create art that inspires people to purse self mastery". 

You say "pick one thing and grind it out until you see success". I think this is a reasonable strategy. For me, I'm primarily focussing on music by putting the most time/effort/dedication into it, and then writing second by putting half as much time/effort/dedication. As I see success in my music path, I've essentially paved the way of how I can achieve things regarding my life purpose, and I can fly with that with my writing. For example I discover insights into the mastery process, how I learn, how to train/practice efficiently, and how my creative spikes work. I can draw from these insights when I want to get more serious about my writing. Also, the idea is to see such success with my music that I will be granted more time and more income from that so that I can better leverage my time to also do my writing, and perhaps film and any other pursuits. In this regard, I can fully achieve the impact I want on all fronts.

Hope this helps!

Edited January 6, 2018 by St Clair

[Leo Gura]

If you can think of a way to blend all your passions together cohesively, then that is fine. That will be your singular purpose.

But otherwise, you need to focus and specialize. Success comes from specialization. You can always branch out later once you've nailed one thing well.

If you are being indecisive, that itself speaks of a larger problem: you are unclear, confused about what you want from life.

And so that is exactly what you will get from life: a muddy, confused mess.

The whole point of finding your LP is so that you don't have doubts any more about your core direction in life. That doubt and indecision kills your ability to master anything. You want to be able to wake up every morning and know exactly what you're working towards, without seconding-guessing yourself.

By not making the hard choice, you've made a choice to be mediocre.

[Ayilton]

On 1/7/2018 at 9:34 PM, Leo Gura said:

If you can think of a way to blend all your passions together cohesively, then that is fine. That will be your singular purpose.

But otherwise, you need to focus and specialize. Success comes from specialization. You can always branch out later once you've nailed one thing well.

If you are being indecisive, that itself speaks of a larger problem: you are unclear, confused about what you want from life.

And so that is exactly what you will get from life: a muddy, confused mess.

The whole point of finding your LP is so that you don't have doubts any more about your core direction in life. That doubt and indecision kills your ability to master anything. You want to be able to wake up every morning and know exactly what you're working towards, without seconding-guessing yourself.

By not making the hard choice, you've made a choice to be mediocre.

Nice one 

[Keepmovingforward]

On 05/01/2018 at 0:17 PM, Space said:

This is exactly the same for me. Too many ideas and things I want to create, and not enough time or focus to execute them. What has worked for me is to simply sit down and ask myself what I enjoy doing most, and what will be the best use of my time. There's no way I could do everything I want to do. What i've also found useful is to focus on doing small projects or 'small bets' that may only require a few months of time, or less, and thus don't require you to grind it out in the hope of getting some success. But, these small bets are big enough and challenging enough that they're developing your skills and actually making a difference, rather than just some half-assed piece of work you do in a day. For me this has just been working on a big painting over the past few months. It hasn't taken up loads of time, but has been very challenging at times. How good the painting turned out is not that important. What is important is that I sat down and actually created something.

 

This. Thinking in terms of projects. I’m in the exact same boat and now I realise, that thinking in terms of “This is the project I’m engaged with now”, elimates the stress of - “I want to do this and that yet I don’t have enough time”