10 Reasons To Find Your Passion Project

Here are 10 reasons why you'll benefit from starting your own passion project:

A state of flow, in my description, is where time stands still and everything but what you're working on is a blur. You feel clarity and complete focus. Some athletes refer to this as the "zone," an almost out of body experience. Often, this happens during a creative or athletic task such as mountain climbing or writing where you become hyper-focused, experience enjoyment and full immersion. Ever since I heard about this, I became obsessed with finding my flow state.

By working on a something like a blog about music, sports, art or eating habits, you can turn that switch to the off, or at least to the pause position. For most people, by correcting this imbalance, they start to notice increased energy, decrease in their body fat, and improved wellbeing.

How does that work? When you're getting stress-relief from working on your project, you become less reliant on foods to decrease stress. Ever heard of eating chocolate cake after a long, stressful day? It's because you crave those feel-good brain chemicals like dopamine. Think of working on your passion project after a long, hard day like your "piece of cake."

Endorphins (basically endogenous or our bodies' natural morphine) are released when you work on a project like this. They're the same neurotransmitters responsible for "runners high" and are also released during meditation, or massage. This happens even if you don't get into flow state.

Checking your email, Facebook and Twitter more than 20 times a day? Many of us love the dopamine spike we get from a new message or when someone "likes" our picture. What if during your mini-breaks at work you were working on something you consider meaningful? What if you could cut your email and web checks to twice a day and use other free time to work on something like your passion project?

Everyone has talents, strengths and interests. Sometimes we have lost those over the years. Why not rediscover this and work on it? Usually a close look at your childhood will reveal areas of talent and interest. Remember when you would go to the library and pick up books for fun? What was it that you loved to learn about? What really made you look at the world in a different light?

Imagine how your kids, spouse or close friends describe you as a person. They definitely are not going to talk about your overtime hours at work, or your favorite websites to surf while killing time at work. Think about what you would want them to say. Shape this now.

As you probably know, money is really hard to make, and it's really easy to lose. One bad investment deal, one house you can no longer afford, anything these days can quickly break the bank. Why not start investing in yourself right now? Imagine you lost your job and had no other job opportunities to jump into. What would be your back up? Wouldn't it be nice to have some experience from your passion project to lean on?

It's remarkable but there is evidence that people who attain purpose through volunteer work have lower rates of heart disease and death. This review of research found that as little as 1-2 hours of volunteer work a week produced a number of beneficial effects including improved mood, health and satisfaction.

So, what if you want to embark on your passion project today? Go ahead because you are the only one who knows what to do. I don’t know. Nobody else knows. But once you begin, the world won’t ever be the same.