It May Not Be Your Passion If:

#9 - Pursuing your passion cuts you off from family and/or friends.

It's not that the people close to me have to be an active and equal partner in my passion(s). They're probably thankful I don't bore them with every minute detail. Still, there should be some link, even if it's acknowledgement, among my family and friends. However, if I hear "This drive to become the best [insert passion] in the world is making you cancel all your outings, and you're becoming a stranger to your family," that might be something for me to look into. No one's told me that yet. But I always have to watch for that possibility.

#1: You're in love with the idea of your passion, but you can't stand the component parts.

#2 - You and your passion have a long distance relationship (and you aren't willing to move.)

#3 - Pursuing your passion clashes big time with your personality.

#4 - In pursuit of your passion you end up doing things that might be hazardous to your health.

#5 - You say it's your passion, but you spend 100% of your "free," non-work time doing just everything else BUT working on what you say you love.

#6 - In considering your passion, you experience "Klondike Thinking."

#7 - You go into debt because the financial costs of practicing it are way too high.

#8 - You don't believe your passion's barriers to entry pertain to you.

Cheesy Promotion Language
I'm watching a tv show on various snack food factories, and I'm hearing a number of terms that gunk up my brain like a pipe full of sludge. I'm talking about those terms that we hear all the time in advertising, the words and phrases that marketers believe will endear us to their products. Me, I just find them cheesy, and annoying in a number of different ways. And these words are:

Best Kept Secret
Used to describe regional products or products that have a small and rabid fan base, I just heard this phrase in a program segment on Dippin's Dots, an ultra-frozen mini-sphere ice cream foodstuff. I also used to hear it when I worked for a very large youth education organization. I always wondered, and still do, why anyone would admit to having a business that's a "best kept secret."

Authentic
Today I heard this adjective linked to "brick ovens," implying that the baking method for a brand of pretzels was somehow linked to a historic cooking method. The trouble is, nobody bothered to linked the word "authentic" to a specific culture, time period, or cuisine. It was implied, and while most viewers would believe there was truth spoken here, I was left wondering exactly what this "authenticity" was really referring to.

Sneak Peek
It seems we're always being offered a "sneak peek," of an upcoming show episode, or a movie, sometimes a concert. Trouble is, I don't like anything "sneaky," because to me it means "somewhat illegal." And the word "peek" is just a little too fey and cutesy to my ears. Put them together and I get this ridiculous vision of an executive producer, on tiptoes, hunched over, lifting the canvas a bit so we can see what's going on inside the circus tent. Note that this vision has nothing to do with the episode, movie, or concert in question.

Your Favorite
Always, always, always used on infomercials for highly specialized cooking or mixing machines. The excitable hosts are working much too hard to link this product to my needs, and by saying "add your favorite pasta, ice cream, spice mix, or fruit and vegetable" they've just gone over the edge. Especially since I never think of the foods in my kitchen as indicative of "my favorite" anything. The "best tasting" or "best deal in the store" perhaps, but "my favorites" can change from day to day. The effect on me - I feel like these uber-bubbly infomercial people are standing just a little too close, like someone on Seinfeld.

Just and Simply
Open up SkyMall and read all about how you "just attach the special vacuum pump to the giant inflatable bounce-castle" and you can "simply" inflate this expensive monstrosity to a size that can destroy most of the grass on your front lawn. Or "simply plug in" the magic fingers massage chair and ease your flight-related stress away for a mere $1250. One or two uses of "just" and "simply" are fine. But read these words over and over in SkyMall before you take off, and the product blurbs become a little too insistent, approaching shrill.

It May Not Be Your Passion If:

#8 - You don't believe your passion's barriers to entry pertain to you.

Everything has a barrier to entry. Some barriers are more labyrinthine than others. You might be a roller-coaster enthusiast, and think the perfect vacation involves travel to a dozen theme parks experiencing the thrills of hurtling upside down at 60 MPH while spinning along a steel metal track. The barrier to entry? Financial. You can't get into a theme park if you don't have the money.

You might think there are places that have no barrier to entry, but they do.

In the movie "Rudy," the title character dreams of playing football at Notre Dame. But there are HUGE barriers to his entry. His grades suck. He's physically smaller than other players. Very few take him seriously. Even his father tries to talk him out of it. Although Rudy hurtles some barriers (like walking into the coach's office unannounced to meet him), he respects that the main barrier to getting into Notre Dame is his academic ability. So he works on that. And works. And works. And works. And works. And works. Clearly, he respects the university's high wall he has to jump over. But he doesn't just go up and say "Here I am, take me in." He does, however, ask people for their help, which is an entirely different thing altogether.

It's only natural to downplay the barriers you'll have to climb, knock down, dismantle, take the long way around, on your way to success in what you love to do. But if you think, "It'll be a breeze, I'll just walk in and everyone will love me and what I do," then you're probably up for a major disappointment.

#1: You're in love with the idea of your passion, but you can't stand the component parts.

#2 - You and your passion have a long distance relationship (and you aren't willing to move.)

#3 - Pursuing your passion clashes big time with your personality.

#4 - In pursuit of your passion you end up doing things that might be hazardous to your health.

#5 - You say it's your passion, but you spend 100% of your "free," non-work time doing just everything else BUT working on what you say you love.

#6 - In considering your passion, you experience "Klondike Thinking."

#7 - You go into debt because the financial costs of practicing it are way too high.