Doing what you love looks and feels an awful lot like, well, being in love!
1. There don’t seem to be enough hours in the day.
You’re working on your project, and you think of a solution to a particular client’s problem, so you jot it down. And then you stumble across a really cool article that you just have to share with your social network. And then you get a call from a client who needs a quick consult. And then you think, “Oh, I should call this person and wish them a happy birthday.” While you’re talking to them, you think of other people that your work would help and ways to tell them about it, and you jot those down. And oh, yeah, your stomach is growling, you really should eat. And now, oops, time to pick the kids up from school already, and you totally forgot to walk the poor dog or update your website!
Why, oh why, aren’t there about five of you?
2. You bound out of bed, full of energy and eager to get the day started.
You rush through the “have tos”—exercising, eating, brushing your teeth, all of the other bodily maintenance stuff we all gotta do—so that you can dive in.
3. You can’t wait to finish what you’re doing so you can start the next project.
While working on your current project, your creativity is in overdrive, coming up with new schemes and products—each one so much more exciting than the last!—that you have to force yourself to finish what you’re working on before starting the next one.
4. You are an idea-generating machine.
You wake up in the middle of the night or early in the morning, your head spinning with new ideas. You begin keeping a notebook or a voice memo recorder next to your bed, because you know you won’t be able to get to sleep again until you write these ideas down.
5. When you’re working, time flies.
You start working at 9 a.m., and when you look at your watch again, it’s after 2! (Oh, crap, missed that lunch date with the girlfriend, and she’s gonna be pissed).
6. You work like your hair is on fire.
You’ve been eating nothing but rice for the last five days because you can’t be bothered to go to the grocery store, and you find yourself turning your underwear inside-out and wearing them again because doing laundry means you would have to take a break from working, and who has the time?
7. You have to resist the urge to tell everybody in the world what you’re doing.
When people ask you, “How are you doing?”, you have to bite your tongue to keep from talking their ear off about your latest project, even though, deep down, you really don’t care what they think. But you want to keep a FEW friends!
8. Your income starts increasing.
You started out doing this for free, or for a few dollars an hour, but before you knew it, you started getting calls from clients who wanted to pay you $50, $100, $500, $1000 a project—and you weren’t even looking!
9. Your health gets better.
Those stubborn pounds you’ve been trying to lose for the last 20 years just start melting off without your doing anything different. Your energy is through the roof—but wait, did you even drink any coffee this morning? Your psoriasis or acne clears up, and you can’t remember the last time you had a migraine. You go to the doctor, and he takes you off of your blood pressure medication and antidepressants because you no longer need them.
10. Good things start happening to you.
Suddenly, clients start lining up outside your door, or you get a big promotion or pay raise at work. Attractive, eligible men or women start showing up in your experience, or your partner starts wanting more sex. Your car, which is usually fussy about starting in the morning, mysteriously starts firing right up.
11. New, positive people start showing up in your life.
The person sitting at the next table next to yours in the cafe spontaneously starts talking to you, and pretty soon you’re chatting as though you had known each other your whole life. Or someone you haven’t heard from in years gives you a call out of the blue, and to your delight, they are even more awesome than you remember them!
12. Suddenly, everywhere you look, you see more and more things related to what you love.
You’re cruising down the highway, and suddenly you notice billboards advertising products or services like yours, and you appreciate their clever marketing tactics. Or everybody starts posting videos and pictures about your favorite topic on Facebook. Or you see something that you need for your business marked down 50%.
13. People start treating you like an expert.
You’re going about your day, dum-de-dum, and suddenly someone emerges from the woodwork and tells you about a problem that they have that you can solve. The thing is, you’ve never seen this person before in your life!
Creepy? Nah. Meet your next client!
14. You wish everybody could feel like this.
You want to shake everyone and say, “Look! Look! Look at how cool everything is! You can do this, too! Why are you choosing to stay so miserable?”
15. At the end of the day, you fall into bed, exhausted and deeply satisfied.
As you lie in bed, you review your day and remember the things that made your client happy, the smile you put on someone’s face, or the kick-ass article you wrote, and know that you have done the best job you ever have in your whole life. And tomorrow, it’s gonna be even better.
How many of these things have YOU experienced?
Featured photo credit: Closeup portrait of a group of business people laughing / Richard Foster via flickr.com
