is the season of spring cleaning, the budding of new things, and the warming of temps. It’s a good chance to evaluate how your year is going and what changes you want to make. Last week, I decided to engage with something I’ve been putting off for over a year: launching an official personal blog (Soul Boomerang). I’ve been writing posts here and there for years, but used Tumblr as the platform and was not consistent at all. It was a passion project and it felt great to finally work on it.

It got me thinking about those things we have a burning sense to do but don’t set aside time to start yet alone complete. They are generally life-giving and may make our lives easier (I’m thinking of home projects in particular), but they take a back burner to actually earning money or caring for family and kids or engaging in a social life.

And there’s nothing wrong with having priorities – in fact, they are necessary and good. So the trick to getting passion projects off the ground is to prioritize them.

To help with this, we need to make two lists:
1. Things we feel called to for any given season.
2. Things we should let go of in that same season.

It sounds basic, but writing things down can bring a surprising degree of clarity and accountability.For me, my first list included things like investing in people through intentional relationships, pursuing work that challenges me, and writing my truth. The second list had things like letting go of expectations that people will be to me what they cannot. Deep right?

Through the exercise, I was reminded that writing is both a creative and emotional outlet for me. It gives a platform to voice things that matter to me like emotional intelligence, justice, and love. And it makes me a better storyteller, marketer, friend, and maybe even human.

So here’s to prioritizing our lives in a way that creates space for our extracurricular projects, one passion at a time.