As a professional artist, painting is both my passion and my part time job. My full time job is Mum to three young kids! Over my 8 years of parenting so far, I've experienced my passion for art fade and bounce back countless times. My responsibilities as a Mum mean I can only paint in small pockets of time, and need to stop working completely over the school holidays. I can be really looking forward to starting a piece when I'm with the kids, and by the time a studio session rolls around I've forgotten why I was so excited. It's also difficult at times to use my own vision as a measuring stick for my art practice instead of the external expectations and validation of others. But I keep showing up to my studio, even when I'm tired, uninspired or feeling inadequate. Some of my best work has come out of sessions where I wasn't feeling passionate initially- that developed through actually doing the work. So my advice is to build a habit of consistency. We can mistakenly believe that a feeling of passion is a prerequisite state for doing anything of significance. Unfortunately feelings of passion are excellent for a short term fix but terrible to rely on for anything you want to sustain. Progress thrives within the limits of plain old discipline and consistency. So keep showing up, even when you aren't into it at the start, even when you don't feel "ready", even when you don't have all your ducks in a row. And just maybe by the end of the day you'll be having so much fun you don't want to ever stop!
When I first began in the holiday-let space, I was so weighted down by the outside expectations that owners had of me delivering the same revenue performance as their neighbor, regardless of the location or condition of the property. Guests expected their accommodation to look aesthetic and Instagram-perfect, while friends and family questioned why I left a nicely paid stable career path in banks to go after something that is pretty unpredictable. I was trying to meet everyone's expectations in parallel, and in all that, I lost connection to that innate passion of just creating spaces. The pleasure of taking a worn-down cottage and putting it back together with a new mindset started to disappear, as each decision I made got filtered through whether someone else would think I got it right, or if the outcome would be worth the time to provide some sort of profitability. What ultimately restored that passion for creating spaces, was creating some super-clear boundaries. I made a conscious choice not to compare every project to another or ask if it would be accepted by someone else. I started regarding each home as its own unique canvas, I'd associated the owners goals, think about its history or what experience I wanted guests to remember, and then went from there. This was personally a big game changer in pulling back some creativity and give "me" permission to enjoy it again. My advice, is to always keep checking in with the choices you are making to see whether it represents the original reasons for starting. To really protect your best interest you need to draw some firm lines as appropriate to avoid that outside, added pressure.
When I began to shape my endeavors around the expectations of other people instead of my own personal aspirations, I feel like external pressures started to sap my enthusiasm for design. In some past experiences, I had moments where funds or partners compelled me to generate growth at all costs. Growth faster than the infrastructure could provide support or seeking revenues in areas that directly contradicted the vision or goals of the organization. In those moments, I did not feel as if I was building something I believed in - rather just chasing an opportunity for someone else. The initial rush and excitement of a project I felt in those earlier days mostly turned to fatigue because I was no longer in the driver's seat. - What I learned from that period of exploration is protecting your authentic passions starts with setting hard boundaries early. For me, this meant determining what projects I was interested in, what compromises I was willing to make, and what I was not willing to bend on. I encourage everyone to write those principles out so you can hear them above the loud outside voices. And if you are clear of purpose for why you began and have a shared understanding of what constitutes the made work and creative aspects, then it will become easier to say "no" to distractions that take you off the chosen path. Protecting passions is not so much about avoiding external pressures, as it is about keeping the compass pointed in the right direction while everything else becomes a cacophony.
I was fueled by the same joy I'd had since I was a kid watching my dad run his fertilization business. There's something deeply satisfying about taking a patchy, tired lawn and turning it into a lush, green space where families actually want to spend time. But once I opened my doors, the outside pressure hit fast people constantly compared me to my father's decades of success, and customers expected nothing short of perfection. Before long, I realized I was working to meet everyone else's standards instead of enjoying the craft I loved. If I could give one piece of advice about protecting your passion, it's this: keep part of it for yourself. For me, that's a quiet morning once a week where I mow a small yard alone, no schedule, no audience just me and the grass. When you hold onto the part that makes you happy, your work stays meaningful, your customers feel it, and the results speak louder than any outside expectation.
The thing I was most aware of during my career transition into plumbing was external expectation. People thought I would just be serving a role until I could return to aviation or that I was there just to help William and was not building a business around my vision. The constant pressure to prove my worth as a female, and in an environment dominated by men, was draining. It caused me to question whether I was following my passion or just trying to meet everyone else's expectations. Eventually the pressure slowly stripped away the excitement that got me here in the first place, because every small win or measure of success was more about meeting someone else's approval than my own success. What brought back my passion was taking a step back and creating the definition of success in my own world. I started to not let external voices define how I would conduct the business, instead focusing on the values important to me in the transition, like transparency, care for my customers, and building a great team. My advice is to keep a very clear picture of why you were drawn into your work in the first place and anchor decisions around that. It is easy to forget that when everyone has an agenda, but if you measure incremental progress based on your standards, it is hard to let the passion fade as fast when there is external pressure.
At the beginning of my career, I was losing track of my passion on the gaming and community aspects as I was overwhelmed by the pressure to gain profits and compete in the industry. This pressure began to distract me out of what initially motivated me, namely, providing the best possible experience to gamers, and the gaming community at large. It got to a point where I was too caught up in the technicalities of scaling the business, finances, and market demands, and I had little time to explore my creative interests. My awakening moment was when I noticed that I had lost all the fun I had playing games, meeting people and helping them enjoy the experience. I started to understand that my love towards creating community-based experiences would have to be defended, even under outside pressure. As a means to safeguard my genuine interests, I actively tried to put the objectives of our company in harmony with the values that initially attracted me to the gaming industry: building relationships and giving people a place to share the experiences. The advice that I can give to people is to regularly remind yourself about the main reasons why you chose your passion. You can easily lose focus because of the expectations of others, but keeping to what first made you want to do something can aid in keeping the passion and meaning in your job. Make sure that you are spending time and energy on the bits of your work that you love and do not allow external pressures to characterize your progress.
External expectations often steered me in directions entirely unrelated to my original interest. Early in my career, I evaluated success in terms of promotions, titles and compensation. These are important, but following these gold stars often meant I compromised my curiosity, the love of solving interesting problems, and arguably the core driver of me doing this type of work at all. I often took on projects which would look good to others, but were chips away my energy over time. Eventually, I began to see that trying to achieve everyone's measures of success would take away significantly more motivation than long hours or difficult technical issues could. My strong suggestion is to treat your own interests as you would treat an asset by closely guarding them. Create intentional boundaries around any of your interests. If you find amusements in any portion of your work, create safeguards for that time and do not let others encroach upon it. Passion can bear a great deal of strain, but only when we are relied upon that which we find energizing - and not interesting to others.
The external pressures can turn your passion into something stressful quickly. The second you care about what others think, whether it be your peers, your followers or what you think is accepted by society, that will tend to take the fun out of the things you love. I had a very similar experience of building Birchbury. At some points in developing the footwear brand, I forgot why I was doing it in the first place because I was so focused on growth, approval and gaining validation to keep me going. The external pressures took my passion and turned it into a chore, rather than something I truly enjoy doing. To keep your authentic interests, focus on what you are passionate about and create a boundary so that all external opinions do not take over your decisions. Seek communities that align with your values and prioritize progress over external rewards. Stay committed to your mission and regularly reflect on why you started. That focus will keep you anchored and will keep you going despite external pressure.
Due to external comparisons with the competitors, I was nearly losing my enthusiasm to build Service First Plumbing. I was always comparing myself to the rest in the industry and it stripped me of the pride I would have in what I was making. I would get frustrated that someone had more trucks on the road or more ads in the market instead of being happy with the growth that I had made. That stress began to burn me out and I wondered what I was doing it here in the first place. What has saved my interest was turning it all back to my own standards. I set measurable objectives that are consistent with my beliefs such as customer satisfaction scores, employee retention rates and the quality of service that we offered. I cheered my teammates with the little victories and kept in mind that being consistent is more powerful than comparing myself to others. When I ceased to be influenced by the outside voices and what constituted success, passion came back even stronger.
The demand to expand faster in IT asset disposition industry has at times challenged my interest. The pressure of the need to grow fast and to get quick money may even eliminate the more righteous and long-term strategy that I want to be responsible to. At such times, one is tempted to lose touch with the true goals of achieving responsible recycling and safe data destruction. I guess what I have learned is that I have never stopped being me and staying on course with my values of protecting data, being transparent and sustainable. The tips I can give to other people bearing this pressure would be to remember what the cause was that encouraged you to start. It is purposeful, and not speedy growth. By drawing the line between your personal values and your business choices, you will be sure not to lose your enthusiasm. Take time to think long-term and on the larger picture even as the temptation to cut short measures is too much. That is what keeps you on the path to sanity and often on what is really important.
There was a time in the early part of my career when I felt my passion was slipping because I was too focused on meeting everyone else's expectations. I was trying to fit into other people's definition of success, and it drained me so badly. But later on, I realized I was spending more time chasing more approval than doing my best to work hard and help people, which is my real goal in the first place. So the best thing I can advise others is to stay connected to the real goal you started in the first place. Make more time to improve your skills and do the things that motivate you to work hard. Listen to feedback, but don't let them drown out your own voice. Don't be scared to speak what's on your mind.
As a psychologist who's worked with high achievers for 10 years, I've seen how perfectionism actually kills passion more than external pressure itself. The real culprit is when we unconsciously adopt other people's definitions of success and mistake them for our own values. I had a client who was a successful lawyer but felt completely dead inside. Through our work, we finded that at age 12, she'd loved creative writing but abandoned it when her parents praised her debate skills as "more practical." She'd spent 20 years climbing a ladder that wasn't even leaning against her wall. The trap happens when our child mind concludes we're only lovable for our achievements rather than who we are. We start performing for approval instead of expressing our authentic selves. One technique I use is having clients visualize their inner child - would you tell that kid their interests don't matter? Most people realize they've been brutal to themselves in ways they'd never treat others. My advice: Start journaling when you feel genuinely energized versus when you're just going through motions. Your perfectionism will try to dismiss these feelings as "impractical," but that resistance is actually pointing you toward what matters most. The goal isn't to abandon responsibility - it's to choose what you're responsible for based on your values, not inherited expectations.
As a licensed trauma counselor and recovering perfectionist myself, I've seen how external expectations literally rewire our nervous system to prioritize others' approval over our authentic interests. The brain science is clear - when we're constantly in "performance mode," our stress response hijacks the neural pathways that fuel genuine passion and curiosity. I developed what I call "Psychological CPR" after watching countless high-functioning clients lose touch with what actually energized them. One client was a brilliant artist who stopped painting entirely because her family kept pushing her toward "practical" career choices. Her brain had learned to associate creativity with conflict and disapproval. The key breakthrough came when we used EMDR to process those early memories of criticism around her art. Within weeks, she was painting again - not because she forced herself to, but because her nervous system finally felt safe enough to reconnect with that authentic interest. My advice: Start noticing when your body tenses up around certain activities versus when it feels expansive. Your nervous system knows the difference between authentic passion and performance anxiety before your conscious mind does. Trust those physical signals over external voices telling you what you "should" care about.
As a trauma therapist working with teens and high achievers, I see this constantly - external pressure literally rewires how we relate to things we once loved. When parents push their teenager from enjoying basketball to obsessing over college scholarships, or when someone's creative outlet becomes about social media metrics, the authentic joy gets buried under performance anxiety. In my practice, I worked with a 17-year-old who stopped painting after her art teacher kept pushing her toward competitions instead of letting her explore. The pressure transformed her safe space into a source of stress, and she developed actual physical symptoms when approaching her easel. Through EMDR therapy, we traced how external validation had hijacked her internal motivation. The most effective protection strategy I've found is what I call "boundary auditing" - regularly checking whether you're doing something for yourself or for others' approval. I teach clients to notice when they start using external metrics (likes, praise, rankings) as their primary measure of satisfaction rather than internal feelings of engagement and joy. Create "pressure-free zones" around your interests. One client started a secret Instagram account just for her photography where nobody she knew could find it - removing the audience pressure let her refind why she loved capturing moments in the first place.
After helping thousands of clients process trauma for over two decades, I've seen how family and societal expectations create what I call "passion paralysis." A client who loved art stopped creating entirely after her parents insisted she pursue law - by the time she came to me, she couldn't even pick up a paintbrush without panic attacks. The most damaging pattern I see is when people abandon their authentic interests to meet others' definitions of success. During EMDR sessions, clients often find their anxiety and depression stem from living someone else's vision of their life. One executive realized his chronic insomnia started the day he left music to join the family business 15 years earlier. I protect my own passion by maintaining strict boundaries around my EMDR intensive work. Despite pressure to take on more traditional talk therapy clients for steady income, I dedicate specific days exclusively to trauma-focused intensives. This work energizes me because I see clients make breakthrough progress in half-day sessions that might take months in weekly appointments. My rule from treating performance anxiety: if pursuing something makes your nervous system constantly activated (racing heart, muscle tension, sleep issues), your body is telling you it's not aligned with who you are. I teach clients to recognize these physical warning signs before external pressures completely disconnect them from their authentic interests.
As a Desert Storm veteran who ended up homeless despite serving my country, I learned how society's "successful veteran" narrative nearly destroyed my authentic calling to help others. The military taught leadership, but civilian expectations demanded I climb corporate ladders instead of working with broken people like myself. The turning point came when I was running a veteran homeless shelter and felt pressure to expand into "more respectable" mental health work. Everyone said equine therapy was too unconventional, too risky for funding. I nearly abandoned it until I saw a veteran with severe PTSD connect with a horse in ways traditional therapy couldn't touch - that's when I knew external voices were leading me away from what actually worked. My protection strategy is brutal simplicity: I only pursue work where I can sleep peacefully knowing I helped someone that day. When starting Warrior Counseling Works, I ignored advisors who wanted me to focus on "stable revenue streams" instead of serving homeless veterans and foster kids. Now we've helped over 352 veterans overcome PTSD through equine therapy. The military teaches you to follow orders, but authentic passion requires you to give orders to your own life. I block out time weekly to work directly with horses and veterans, not just manage programs, because that hands-on connection keeps me grounded in why I started this work.
As someone who works with elite dancers and athletes, I see passion-killing pressure constantly. The Houston Ballet dancers I work with often describe how external judgment about their bodies or technique can make them dread what they once loved. One dancer told me she stopped enjoying rehearsals because she was so focused on avoiding criticism about her weight. The most damaging pattern I see is when people start performing their passion for others' approval rather than their own satisfaction. I wrote about this in my "GO mode" experience - I got so caught up in business metrics and social media performance that I burned out completely and had to take an unplanned hiatus from the work I actually enjoyed. My approach now is what I call "values-first perfectionism." When I work with high-performers, we identify what originally drew them to their craft, then build boundaries around protecting that core motivation. For dancers, this might mean limiting mirror time or avoiding certain social media accounts that trigger comparison. The key is recognizing when your perfectionism shifts from proactive (driven by excitement) to reactive (driven by fear of judgment). I teach clients to ask "Am I reacting to fear?" If yes, step back and reconnect with what you genuinely love about the activity, not what others expect from your performance of it.
As a clinical psychologist running MVS Psychology Group, I see this pattern constantly in my practice - especially with burnout cases where people lose connection to what originally drove them. The most telling example was a client who became a teacher because they loved helping kids learn, but after years of standardized testing pressure and admin demands, they couldn't even remember why they chose education. What I've learned from treating hundreds of burnout cases is that external expectations create what I call "movement disorders" - you're going through motions but not actually moving toward anything meaningful. When we lose authentic motivation, we literally slow down mentally and physically, which is why depression often follows passion fade. My approach with clients is always to map their "meaning markers" first - those specific moments when they felt genuinely engaged versus just performing. I had one client track their energy levels during different work tasks for two weeks, and we finded that 80% of their role was draining them while only 20% aligned with their core values. The protection strategy I recommend is building what I call "control anchors" - setting small, achievable goals that connect back to your original why. Instead of fighting all external pressure, identify which parts you can influence and create micro-wins there. Most people try to overhaul everything at once and burn out faster.
As a therapist specializing in parent burnout, I've seen how societal pressures around "perfect parenting" completely extinguished my clients' natural joy in raising their children. The Instagram-worthy birthday parties and Pinterest-perfect craft projects turned what should be authentic connection into exhausting performance. I nearly fell into this trap myself during early parenthood - sleep-deprived and comparing myself to other moms who seemed to have it all figured out. The pressure to be the "always available" parent made me lose sight of why I wanted children in the first place. Now I teach parents the "good enough parent" concept from Donald Winnicott's research. When one client stopped trying to be the Pinterest mom and started having messy baking sessions with her daughter instead, she refinded genuine enjoyment in parenting. Her stress levels dropped significantly within two weeks. My protection strategy is simple: I regularly ask myself what I needed as a child that I didn't get, then focus on giving that to my own family. This keeps me grounded in authentic care rather than external validation. When you parent from your own values instead of social media standards, both you and your kids benefit from that genuine energy.
As a marriage therapist with 35+ years of experience, I've watched countless couples lose their authentic connection because they're living someone else's version of marriage. The pressure to look "perfect" on social media, meet family expectations, or conform to church community standards often creates what I call "performance marriages" - relationships where couples are so busy meeting external expectations that they forget who they actually are together. I had one couple where the wife had completely abandoned her love of art because her mother-in-law constantly criticized it as "impractical." She spent years trying to be the "perfect Catholic wife" her husband's family expected, but this killed her spirit and created deep resentment. When we worked through this in therapy, her husband revealed he'd fallen in love with her creativity in the first place and missed that side of her terribly. My advice is to regularly audit whose voice is loudest in your head when making decisions about your interests and relationships. I tell clients to create "authenticity anchors" - non-negotiable activities or values that keep you grounded in who you really are, regardless of what others think. The couples who protect these individual passions while building shared ones tend to have the strongest, most resilient marriages. The irony is that when you stop trying to meet everyone else's expectations, you often become more attractive to your partner and more fulfilled as an individual. External pressure creates hollow relationships; authentic interests create depth and lasting connection.