Hey girl! When did your passion become so passé?

A woman, irrespective of what she chooses to pursue – be it a career in a corporate, entrepreneurship or home making – has a to-do list full of different chores struggling for her attention. This list could start from laundry requirements at home and end with managing deadlines at work. With an array of chores to handle, prioritizing can be quite challenging. And then, if she has a passion to follow, all hell can break loose! I personally feel it is very important for everyone to follow a passion. It could be gardening, running marathons, pursuing music, dance, poetry or anything else that the heart chooses.

Passion is little more than just a hobby. As Oprah Winfrey puts it, ‘Passion is energy’. It is not just about being true to yourself but also the only honest obligation to yourself and to everything else around you. Yet, why is passion buried deep under a list of mundane must-do’s?

Statistics say that giving up a most cherished passion is more common with women than with men. A little girl’s journey to womanhood, and finally into motherhood, leaves her piled with numerous responsibilities. In the processes, we chose to distance ourselves from our own ‘true selves’.

We chose to be kind to others but forget to treat ourselves well.

I am a mother of two grown up kids yet deal with moments of guilt almost every day. In the midst of everything, I refuse to give up and always chose to manage home, work and passion all through. I understand it is never easy but definitely not impossible. Pursuing music and writing lyrics along with managing work is daunting, but I have understood that doing that makes me happy and productive in my career too.

So what made it work for me? My buzzword here is productivity over priority. I don’t quite understand the latter. Does prioritizing mean choosing ‘urgent’ over ‘important’ work? In addition, shouldn’t we question the importance of urgency in the given situation? Not everything urgent can be a sensible ask! Of course, I have mixed up the two many times. But as they say, you get better with time and age. Here’s a set of things that help me balance work and passion:

1. Understand your skill sets – what are you really good at? There is always a difference in what you are good at vis-a-vis what you love to do. You might love to read but might not be a good writer. Understanding what you are good at will help you make a career choice. This is important. If money is your need of the hour, you might end up taking a job that is not a career. But, doubt if you will be able to stick to it. Here, it’s the urgency speaking. Only you can be the best judge of that at any given point.

2. Figure out what gives you satisfaction and pulls you out of boredom from your career routine. In other words, what makes you go back to your job with renewed energy? It is natural for your regular career orientation to get boring. Would leaving be a solution, especially when you would have worked at it for years? For working mothers, spending time with kids could be fun, relaxing, and help negate all sorts of guilt. However, what is it that is solely you? Find that out.

3. Once you are done with the two, study your body and chart out your most productive hours in a day. Plan your hours accordingly giving heed to important vs urgent. Work backwards. Keep an hour or two for your hobby or passion; it could be late evening too. Work everything else around without disturbing this slot. You might find it unmanageable in the beginning, stick to it and in no time, you will see everything easily accommodating accordingly.

4. Not to worry, this will not make you anti-family or anti-mommy. On the contrary, you will be more organized with more time to take care of family and kids. A happy woman translates into a happy family.

At the end of it, take care of yourself, eat right and sleep right. It always about focusing on the important and you are the best judge to decide what that is. As I said, if choosing urgent over important or vice versa is priority, do that, but be productive. Woman are born multitaskers, do not give up on your passion but keep it going for that is who you are and will be all through. I leave you with a quote by Tagore, “Do not linger to gather flowers to keep them, but walk on for flowers will keep blooming your way.”

About me – I work for an MNC as a Global Marketing Head for a Service Line along with being a Music Director and Singer. I have given music and sung for some regional films and now actively participate in music concerts both in India and abroad to revive old Indian genres and renditions. I am a mother two lovely daughters and a wife to an amazing husband.