Earning a living doing what you love is a luxury not everyone can enjoy. More often than not, we end up working jobs that have nothing to do with our passion while building the career of our dreams.
Sometimes even when you build these dreams, you can find your passion waning, and it can be challenging to stay excited about your work.
Mary Jane Cole is an artist, so she knows all too well the importance of passion in her work. It is what helps her create vivid and authentic art.
On paper, her career began six years ago when she moved to Ventura, California, to pursue her photography career, but she has been making art ever since she was a toddler.
It’s been more than 20 years since Cole discovered her passion for art, but she is still just as, if not more excited, at the thought of creating. She says, “I could never get bored.”
I had to know what kept her going, what fueled her passion, so I asked her to share her secret. She told me that it all boiled down to a couple of things she discovered throughout her years creating.
Be Picky
When you start fresh In any field, you can’t be too picky about the jobs you choose, and most of the work you do will be for the experience and not necessarily because you’re passionate about it. The problem, however, is not knowing when to start screening out some of these jobs.
Whether it’s the fear of losing a client or an opportunity, many people are hesitant to turn down jobs even though they are not passionate about it.
The result is that they get burnt out pretty quickly, and the quality of their work suffers. It also hurts the few jobs you are passionate about because you can’t devote as many resources as you would like to them.
Cole faced the same challenge when she started Mary Jane Cole Photography. She didn’t want to turn down jobs because of the potential financial implications. Still, she also realized that her time and energy were limited and that her other projects were suffering because she was trying to do it all.
In the end, she decided that something had to change. She said, “I’ve had to learn to say no to projects I’m not passionate about to leave space for things that fit my vision and clients that value my work.”
Set Goals and Make plans
Goals are targets that you aim for, and they can help improve your productivity and get things done. But they can also help you maintain your passion. Nothing is more rewarding than ticking a task off your to-do list.
Setting goals helps to remind you of the progress you’ve made and keep you excited about your plans.
Cole realized the importance of goal setting early in her career and has developed a method that worked best for her. “I list everything I need to get done and then number the top 3 that I need to get done first. She says. “It helps me stay on the most important tasks instead of getting overwhelmed and lost in a long to-do list.”
Start on a high note.
How you begin your day sets the tone for the rest of it.
Start your day doing something you love or something you’re passionate about, and you’ll find that for the rest of the day, that passion will bleed into everything you do.
Take every opportunity to Pursue your passion.
There will never be a perfect time to learn that language or to make that change you’ve been putting off.
Do it now.
Cole learned this during the pandemic. When Covid-19 hit, Cole suddenly found herself free to do whatever she wanted. She decided to spend that time pursuing a passion that had been on her mind for quite a while.
Tattooing.
Taking that bold step turned out to be a great idea. Cole says, “every time I tattoo, I become a better painter and vice versa. Finding my style in one discipline carries over into the next, and I love being able to jump between mediums to express different ideas.”
Don’t Lose Your Streak.
“Do something every single day to bring you closer to your goal,” Cole tells me. It is the most critical piece of advice she has for anyone thinking of getting into photography.
Being consistent builds momentum, and momentum helps you get much farther much quicker. It also keeps your passion alive.
If passion is a fire, that constant effort you put in is the fuel.
Stay Organized
When Cole started Mary Jane Cole Photography, she realized there was a lot more to running a photography business on her own than she initially thought.
There were a lot of administrative tasks that left little time for actual shooting and editing.
“Whenever I get close to someone, they’re shocked at how much time and effort does go on behind the scenes between bookkeeping and marketing and communicating with clients and updating social media sites and planning, shooting and editing.”
These other tasks can become clutter that makes doing what you love difficult.
Cole took drastic steps to solve this problem. She tells me, “I’m learning my limits time-wise and energy-wise and becoming more organized to help streamline the parts of the process I can.”
Bonus Tip
The key to staying passionate is finding ways to keep loving what you do. And by simply applying these tips, Cole has nurtured a lifelong passion for the arts. When asked about her love for art, she said, “ I can’t imagine doing anything else. It combines everything I love into one career and every day is something new. New settings, new people, new challenges, and things to learn. I could never get bored.”