Embrace Your Passions!

Having multiple interests and passions is a blessing, and in this newsletter, I’ll tell you why.

Do you like to design AND photograph? Cook AND create art? Garden AND write? Please create your own combo.

For me, it's design and art.

I can’t even start counting how many years or even decades I’ve spent debating which one to focus on. SO MUCH ENERGY WASTED.

The endless analysis and overthinking only left me feeling stuck. But then it hit me - why choose? Why not pursue both?

In all the time I spent analyzing and trying to pick one, I could’ve easily become the next Picasso. Okay, I’m exaggerating a little bit, but you get the idea.

👉 Have you ever been told that it’s impossible to succeed in two areas? That when you chase two rabbits, you catch neither?

What if you could?

In one of the episodes of my favorite personal development podcast hosted by Rob Dial, he mentioned Jared Leto - a successful musician AND actor. He’s brilliant in BOTH! I recently watched the Apple series “We.Crashed” and Jared Leto CRUSHED this role :D So, when he was asked what’s the secret of his double success, Jared simply answered something like “I just started, which put me ahead of 90% of other people”.

THIS IS IT 🙌

All those gurus telling us to forget about our passions and dreams and stay focused on just one thing probably haven’t started themselves. And we all can judge and give pieces of advice even if we haven’t been asked for it.

Of course, our attention is very fragile, and in order to maintain a healthy balance, we have to have structures. But.. we can ABSOLUTELY have multiple passions.

In fact, let’s think about it this way: who the heck are those people to think they can dictate our lives? Is there a BIG BOSS in the clouds giving us rules to live by? No, there’s not!

So, why don’t we try out new things and simply ignore others telling us otherwise?

Guess what! In my case, having two passions caused each of them to boost the other! I recently started painting abstract expressionism - a complete opposite of my interior and exterior concepts. In the abstract, it’s all about your emotions, encounters, experiences, and stories. After painting for a couple of days, I’ve gained A TON of new drawing hacks for my interiors (which I, of course, will share with my students at the ASDB Academy :)).

So, painting somehow boosted my iPad drawing and helped me create in a more natural and free way.

The quality of our designs and sketches depends on the first line, and if it sucks, then the entire drawing sucks :D

That's it for today! The best of luck with your passions because, as you've just learned, you are ABSOLUTELY ALLOWED to have multiple. And so am I :)

Warm regards,

Anna