What are you passionate about?
Passion can be defined as a strong inclination toward a self defining activity that we like, love or find important, in which we invest time and energy (Rousseau & Vallerand, 2003).
Engaging in a meaningful activity that we’re passionate about and choose to do, increases our psychological well-being, including our levels of life satisfaction, sense of meaning in life and vitality, and decreases anxiety and depression. Performing activities we’re passionate about has also been shown to increase our feeling of energy whilst doing the activity and afterwards (Rousseau & Vallerand, 2003).
I find that with age (*cries*) comes more responsibility, more work and more time spent caring for the needs of others as opposed to time spent caring for our own needs. It’s easy to disconnect from activities we previously enjoyed and were passionate about!! But….. with the above information in mind, doing the things we enjoy are more likely to make us feel better psychologically and feel more vitality….which will in turn possibly make us more effective workers and better able to engage in relationships with our loved ones!!
However, a note of caution!! (Rousseau & Vallerand, 2003) distinguish between two types of passion. Harmonious passion, and obsessive passion.
Harmonious passion results when an individual freely performs any activity without any contingency associated with it – the rewards are intrinsic and the activity fits in with our sense of self and identity. Harmonious passion helps us to want to willingly engage in the activity, and motivates us to freely engage in the activity because we love and enjoy it and it feels “like me.” Harmonious passions allow is to experience concentration, positive emotions and flow. We are also more likely to be experience harmonious passion when we recognise and are using our signature strengths.
Obsessive passion on the other hand occurs when we are consumed by engaging in an activity, with extreme perseverance. The activity often has contingencies surrounding it, such as social acceptance or self esteem. The passion can become controlling and consuming, and may result in us pursuing the activity above other needs – this may result in feelings of cognitive dissonance and negative emotions!! Vallerand et al (2006) showed that harmonious passion is positively correlated with vitality, but obsessive passion is not! Can you think of an example of someone with an obsessive passion?
Do you spent time doing the activities you love? Which activities help you to experience a feeling of flow? How can you make more time for activities you’re passionate about in order to increase your wellbeing?
Do you have an obsessive passion that conflicts with other areas of your life? What do you value about this obsessive passion? How does this relate to your other values? What need does this passion fulfill? Can you meet that need any other way? Can you think about how you can better integrate this activity in with your other values and who you want to be?
What are you passionate about? Music? Fitness? Coffee!? My coffee passion may just be obsessive….not harmonious!!! Need….more….coffee…
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The key messages you share remind me of Daniel Pink and the need of organisations to harness intrinsic rewards. The article is a salient prompt to focus on ourselves and our harmon I us passions. Thank yo for the trigger.
Hi David,
Thanks for your comment!! Really good point – self determination theory is also a really great model of motivation (similar to Pink’s work!!) and is so relevant for motivation in organisations.