How to balance passion and profession: 3 questions to ask for being okay with devoting time to your passion projects

Let's get into today's video: How online business owners — including freelancers and other solopreneurs — can make time for your passion projects… 

So, here's the problem: When you are your own boss, when you have your own business, you might feel like you only need to prioritize the tasks that increase your bottom line. That might be your main area of focus. 

Now, as we've talked about in a previous video here on my solopreneur tips YouTube channel, focusing on time freedom actually paves the way to achieve financial freedom. And that means that time freedom can be a better area for you to pursue over focusing on solely financial freedom.

>>> Click HERE to watch that video about financial freedom and time freedom.

If you're only focusing on the business activities that make you money, here's what's going to happen: You're probably going to start resenting your work, you're probably going to start having worse relationships with your clients and customers because you're only going to be seeing dollar signs, you're going to be taking it away from the actual work that you're doing and the actual relationships that you're building, the value that you're providing. 

You're going to be focused only on dollar amounts. And that's really going to impact the quality of your work and the quality of your relationships with your clients, your customers, your audience, all of that kind of thing. 

You're also probably not going to be getting the breaks and the rest that you need. You're going to be constantly thinking about, “How can I make more money?” That's really going to impact your ability to take time off, work and enjoy life; all of those types of pieces.

At the same time, your business is still a business! You do of course need to make money from it, you need to pay your bills. That is important. You do need to make money and if you are currently in a situation where you are financially not quite where you want to be with your business, then you might really be struggling with allowing yourself to do anything in your business except focusing on revenue generating tasks. You might be not allowing yourself to do any other activities because you're so focused on earning that income, profitable business activities. 

Again, they are 100% important. It's very, very important that your business turns a profit. However, we do not live to work. We work to live. You can enjoy your business, you can care very deeply about your business, you can make an income and a very decent living from your business, while also prioritizing your personal life, your personal goals, your personal values. 

Passion projects are a part of that life aspect. Hobbies, the things that you care about, your passion projects are really important. And we want to ensure that we are taking that time and that opportunity to prioritize them and build them into part of your day to day life and your day to day business.

The trap that most business owners fall into at this point is saying something like, “After I make X amount of money in my business, whatever that dollar amount might be, then I can start doing my passion projects again. After I hit that dollar amount milestone, then I can add in my passion projects.”

If you have this mentality, that is very common — but it's not going to work. Because either you will or you will not make that amount!

So let's say that you DO make that amount: You hit that milestone that you set for yourself. Awesome, that's great. In that case, you're probably going to have extra workload from clients and customers — in which case, you won't actually have the time or the energy to devote to your passion projects. 

If you had a particular dollar amount in mind that requires you to be active in your business — If you are, for example, a freelance writer or editor, it's a service based business — if you have this dollar amount in mind, then you're just increasing your workload, which doesn't actually give you the time and space to work on your passion projects.

Or the other thing that might happen is that you achieve that particular milestone, that dollar amount, and then you just move the milestone up again.

You say, “Okay, this is great that I achieved this amount of dollars. And now I need to do this again next month or next quarter,” or “Oh, this amount is great, but I actually want to increase it again before I add in my passion projects, because now I have to pay more in taxes.”

Or, you say, “Now I have more business expenses,” or you just have fears about the amount of money that you're making. And you just want to increase that buffer, that sort of safety net, so that when you do incorporate your passion projects, you have that to fall back onto. You might still have a new specific number that you now want to reach before you're allowed to work on passion projects. 

So as you can see, if you wait until you make a certain dollar amount before starting to do your passion projects, it's not actually going to help you. 

And what if you don't make that amount? What if you set a goal for yourself and you say, “After I make X amount, then I can work on my passion projects again,” but you DON’T hit that goal? 

Well in that case, if you have a flopped launch or if your marketing and your sales aren't as effective as you want them to be, then you'll probably just decide, “Okay, I should just work harder.” And then you're going to be spinning your wheels even more trying to achieve that dollar amount goal. And you won't be able to have that joy of working on your passion projects. You're just continuing to put it off and put it off and put it off. 

So I hope that you can see that if you are saying to yourself, “After I make X amount of money, then I can start working on my passion projects again,” if that's what you're saying to yourself, it's not actually helping you regardless of whether you hit that milestone or not. 

It's still not helping you to actually create space for working on your passion projects. 

A better approach is to look at what you can genuinely control, which is NOT whether people buy from you — because you can do everything in your power to make it easier or more accessible or more likely that people will buy it from you, but you cannot force anyone to buy from you (and nor would you want to!). So that is not actually something you control. 

Instead, it's about your actions: What can you control? 

With that in mind, I have here the top three questions to ask yourself. We have a yes or no checklist here: It's a very simple yes or no checklist to really focus on the things that you can control. And that way you can create that space for your passion projects. 

So again, if you are in this instance of wanting to make a certain amount of money in your business, or you are wanting to ensure that your business is on a really good track to achieve your goals, and you want to be able to make time for those passion projects, then these are the top three questions to ask yourself…

Question number 1: Am I producing high quality work in my business, yes or no?

We ask this question because you want to make sure that the work that you're doing is really good, is high quality, and is really valuable for your clients and customers. You want to do a good job. And regardless of the industry that you're in or the services or the products that you offer, you always always want to be providing high quality and high value work to your clients and customers. 

So here you're really checking in with the quality of your work: Is it good? Are your clients and your customers fully satisfied? Are they thrilled with the work that you do? Are you getting really good feedback and testimonials? Are they delighted with the work that you provide for them? Are they coming back to you? Are they referring you to other people, are they giving you repeat work? 

All of those factors come into play here for identifying, “Is my work good?”

If your answer is NO… So if you are not getting good feedback from clients and customers, if you are looking at your work and you're thinking, “This is not the quality that it should be,” then that is an indicator that you need to improve your skill set. You need to get extra professional development and continuing education in your field and really build on improving your skills. 

Now if your answer is YES, “My work is really good, it is high quality, people are raving about my work,” then you can move on to the next question! 

Question number 2: Am I being consistently visible with my marketing and sales, yes or no?

We ask this because if you are great with your job, if you are great with the work that you do, the content that you create, the work that you produce, then in that case you need to promote yourself. That should be your area of focus: promoting yourself and your work. 

If you are not getting clients and customers in this scenario, it's not because your products and services aren't awesome. You know that they are awesome! So it's probably because you need to improve your marketing and sales. That's what you need to focus on. 

Here, you're checking in with your promotions: Are you being consistent with the strategy that you've chosen, or is your strategy kind of all over the place? Are you truly being visible and showing up and putting yourself out there? Or are you waiting and hoping that people will just magically start coming to you? Are you being active in your marketing?

If your answer is NO, then that is an indicator to review your marketing and your sales and your visibility and make some big changes to it.

If your answer is YES, then you can move on to the next question…

Question number 3: Am I satisfied with my efforts and strategy, yes or no?

We ask this question because if you are good at the work that you do, and you are being consistent and visible with your marketing and your sales, but you're still not getting results, people are not buying from you as much as you might want them to be, then you'll want to look at whether you're satisfied with the effort that you are putting in. 

If your answer is NO, then that is an indicator to assess what is not working about it — about your efforts, your strategy, and where your dissatisfaction is. What specifically are you not satisfied with, so that you can then pivot accordingly and make some changes to it.

If your answer is YES, then that indicates that you might just need more time for your strategy to work. Some strategies are going to take a little bit longer than others. Some of them are going to be much more about the longer game, so maybe you do not have enough data or information yet to determine whether a particular strategy is actually working or whether it's actually effective. 

In that case, you need to let it do its thing. You need to stick with it and trust in it and continue working on it, while you are making that time for having fun with your passion projects. 

Now even if you answered NO to each of those above three questions, then you are still deserving of working on passion projects. You were always worthy of working on your passion projects, and your passion projects are always worthy of your time and your energy.

I would say in that case, if again, you answered NO to each of the above of those three questions, then in that case, what you really need to do — what I would strongly recommend that you do — is to get coaching to figure out those internal obstacles that are holding you back and getting in your way. 

That would be the first thing that I would recommend that you do: hire a coach who can support you, who can help you navigate, figure out what's going on there and to help you work through them.