Episode 92
Integrating Passions: Navigating the Multi-Passionate Struggle
Hey Pathfinders! Ever feel torn between your many passions and interests? In this episode, I dive deep into multi-passionate people's challenges, from the guilt of not focusing on just one thing to the exhaustion of managing multiple creative identities. I'll share my journey of integrating various parts of myself—including my love for digital art, Twitch streaming, and podcast managing—into a coherent, fulfilling life. Learn how to honor all parts of who you are without burning out. Remember, integrating your passions is the key to a balanced life. Tune in and let's figure this out together! 🌟
00:00 Introduction to the Multi-Passionate Struggle
02:00 The Reality of Having Too Many Passions
04:20 The Guilt and Management of Multiple Interests
05:34 The Complications of Multiple Identities
12:59 Integrating Multiple Passions
17:42 Finding Sustainable Success
19:55 Conclusion: Embracing All Parts of Yourself
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Transcript
Hey, I'm Taylor Danielle and welcome back to Healing in Hindsight, where we get real about the messy middle of building a life that works for you.
Speaker A:Let me ask you something.
Speaker A:Do you ever feel like you have multiple lives and versions of yourself in one body, sharing this one brain, and they all want to be expressed?
Speaker A:You're constantly torn between all the things you could be, should be and want to be, but there's never enough time or energy to be all of them.
Speaker A:Today we're talking about the multi passionate struggle that society doesn't prepare us for, the guilt that comes with having too many interests, the exhaustion of trying to manage multiple creative identities, and why the advice to just pick one thing and stick with it might be completely wrong for people like us.
Speaker A:If you've ever felt guilty for having multiple passions, if you've tried try to compartmentalize different parts of yourself into separate boxes, or if you're just tired of choosing between the various versions of who you could be, this episode is for you.
Speaker A:I've learned that the goal isn't to pick one passion, it's to find peace with all of them.
Speaker A:You're listening to Healing in Hindsight, your Nobia's guide to unadulterated wellness.
Speaker A:It feels like we're all struggling to balance wellness, identity and personal purpose without losing ourselves, doesn't it?
Speaker A:It's okay.
Speaker A:You're not alone.
Speaker A:I'm Taylor Danielle and as someone who manages multiple disabilities, is trying to leave the corporate grind and striving to create a life on my terms.
Speaker A:I'm just here to help you embrace your path and redefine success in a way that works for you.
Speaker A:If that sounds like your vibe, join me for conversations and insights to remind you your journey is yours, exactly as it should be.
Speaker A:Let me paint you a picture of what too many passions actually looks like in real life.
Speaker A:When I think about my interest, I think of them as things I wish I could dedicate full time energy to.
Speaker A:It's like having multiple lives and versions of me in one body, sharing this one brain.
Speaker A:They all want to be expressed.
Speaker A:Oh, and adhd?
Speaker A:Well, ADHD makes this whole situation even more interesting.
Speaker A:I have several unfinished projects, numerous ideas that could be businesses, and a lot of literal passion and energy for all of it, but not enough time to learn it all and do it all.
Speaker A:Take crocheting for example.
Speaker A:I picked it up especially because my maternal grandma did it.
Speaker A:When I'm crocheting, it's like I'm having that moment with her, but instead of me watching her, she's watching me.
Speaker A:It's this beautiful connection.
Speaker A:But I'm not as fast as I want to be, and I tend to mess up a lot.
Speaker A:I get excited by everything I could be making if I already had the advanced skills and muscle memory.
Speaker A:But I'm stuck in beginner mode, making mistakes on a hooded scarf because I keep doing the wrong stitch anyways.
Speaker A:Then there's digital art.
Speaker A:I went to college for studio art.
Speaker A:Dropped out, but specifically painting and drawing.
Speaker A:When things like graphic tablets came out, and later smart tablets like the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, I thought I could revive that artistic part of myself.
Speaker A:I have Procreate, the Go to application for iPads for digital art and a million brushes.
Speaker A:Okay, maybe not a million, but you just hoard brushes, okay?
Speaker A:It's a thing.
Speaker A:Especially if they're free.
Speaker A:You just.
Speaker A:You're just like, I don't know when I'm gonna use this.
Speaker A:I'm gonna use it though.
Speaker A:At some point it's gonna happen.
Speaker A:I'm gonna get this brush or bundles of brushes.
Speaker A:There's a lot of brushes.
Speaker A:Needless to say, I haven't jumped into creating more.
Speaker A:So just fantasizing about the art that I could be making.
Speaker A:Here's the pattern I've repeated more times than I care to admit.
Speaker A:I'll hyper fixate on something, spend money on supplies and tools, then get distracted by something else that looks creative and interesting.
Speaker A:I used to feel really intense guilt about this cycle, but I also realized that I started to get desensitized to that guilt because I always circle back to it at some point.
Speaker A:The guilt that gets me now is different.
Speaker A:How much further along could I have been had I stayed focused?
Speaker A:How much more advanced can my skills be?
Speaker A:That's the guilt that cuts pretty deep.
Speaker A:I've learned to manage this by limiting my budget to around $30 for new creative ventures.
Speaker A:It feels like a lot, but not too much.
Speaker A:Plus, I like the number three.
Speaker A:I've always liked threes.
Speaker A:And this way I can still satisfy that need to try new things without going overboard.
Speaker A:Most of the time I have.
Speaker A:I've made peace with some projects.
Speaker A:Digital art has become more of a, you know, like more of an it's there if I want to dabble situation.
Speaker A:So, for example, when I use specific brushes, I found a set to create a map for the continent of my tabletop RPG campaign that I'm working on.
Speaker A:And that, to me, feels purposeful rather than scattered.
Speaker A:Here's where things got really complicated, though.
Speaker A:When my multiple passions started feeling like multiple businesses.
Speaker A:This is the part where I am doing everything that I can to really stay in the lanes that I've put myself in.
Speaker A:Everything changed when I decided, through numerous peer pressures from friends and people that I care about, but I decided to start streaming on Twitch.
Speaker A:Initially, streaming was going to be an outlet, a place for all the creative energy that didn't fit into at the time, my diabetes focused podcast.
Speaker A:But as the creator economy started picking up, especially during the pandemic when I started all of this, what began as different creative expressions suddenly felt like I was managing different businesses.
Speaker A:The goal was to get monetized as soon as possible, get to affiliate, start the YouTube channel, get to YouTube partner, you know, all these things.
Speaker A:I had three brands to juggle, which was a wild ride.
Speaker A:My Twitch stream, my podcast, Appealing Hindsight, and my personal brand as me, Taylor Danielle.
Speaker A:And then there was this username confusion.
Speaker A:So I had my first Instagram account.
Speaker A:It's the oldest account that I've had, and I named it Electric Phoenix.
Speaker A:And Electric has an X on the end because someone already took the literal spelling of that one.
Speaker A:But that was for gaming.
Speaker A:I love the Phoenix.
Speaker A:I have it tattooed on my back.
Speaker A:And I really loved the girl group Electric Red, but they spelled Electric with a K at the end.
Speaker A:And it was like the first, you know, girl kind of R B group that cursed in your music openly.
Speaker A: to pick up in, you know, like: Speaker A:So Electric Phoenix for gaming or I transitioned that account for gaming.
Speaker A:Then I started another Instagram account for me, the person, Taylor Danielle for professional stuff.
Speaker A:You know, kind of like how you had one MySpace page for all of your fun friends stuff, and then if somebody searched for you, you had another one for like, look at me, I'm an angel.
Speaker A:I clearly don't do any degenerate stuff.
Speaker A:So switching back and forth really became a problem.
Speaker A:And depending on the platform and purpose, it got a little chaotic.
Speaker A:And of course, the show healing.
Speaker A:In hindsight, I didn't want to merge everything.
Speaker A:I really saw this and still do see this expanding well beyond me.
Speaker A:So I. I really didn't want to pull all of these things in one place.
Speaker A:I thought it made sense at the time for them to all be separate.
Speaker A:I could have Electric Phoenix for my gaming, creative stuff for, you know, the friends who are already following me and knew me, and then just Taylor Danielle, which is kind of like My professional brand, you know, from career to all of the, you know, entrepreneurial ventures that I'm getting myself into, and then Healing In Hindsight, the company, the entity that I, you know, am doing everything under.
Speaker A:So when I realized I was managing three separate identities across different platforms, multiple platforms at that.
Speaker A:I just told you about the three Instagrams.
Speaker A:There are others in terms of YouTube, LinkedIn, all these things.
Speaker A:I just, I knew it was getting to be a bit much.
Speaker A:Streaming started to feel like another job, like being a waitress, hoping it's busy so you'll get good tips.
Speaker A:The podcast, which, you know, already existed.
Speaker A:So now I had two other things that I had to take care of.
Speaker A:I technically had two Twitch channels.
Speaker A:I had Electric Phoenix, which already existed on the platform because I was a moderator for one of my friends streams.
Speaker A:And I had Is There Room for Me?
Speaker A:Which didn't relate to either of the two.
Speaker A:And that is what I started streaming under.
Speaker A:I wanted to take everything that I wasn't talking about with Healing in Hindsight and put it there.
Speaker A:So in reality it was actually 4, but quickly became 3.
Speaker A:Because trying to do two twitch streams on polar opposite ends of one's more this like live talk show, just chatting kind of thing.
Speaker A:And the other is all about, you know, my nerdy gaming stuff.
Speaker A:And then the three Instagrams and then all the other platforms that came with it because you felt like you had to be everywhere all at once.
Speaker A:So three brands, three audiences, and three different versions of myself to maintain.
Speaker A:That sounds like a lot just saying that right now.
Speaker A:And I'm sure as you can imagine, the pressure was exhausting.
Speaker A:I was constantly updating my website Healing and hindsight, thinking about brand refreshes, trying to keep all these separate identities aligned and growing.
Speaker A:I was just splitting myself and spreading myself so thin across all of these different areas that I was trying to share with the world because I didn't feel like I could do it in this one place.
Speaker A:The pressure was exhausting.
Speaker A:I was constantly updating different websites, thinking about brand refreshes, trying to keep all these separate identities aligned and growing.
Speaker A:When I had worked for a company that focused on creators for two years, it was actually a relief not to focus on streaming or the show.
Speaker A:But when I got laid off during all of my exit interviews and things like that, a lot of people kept saying I needed to do my own thing.
Speaker A:And that surfaced a core question that I'd been asking myself ever since I started all of this back during the pandemic, and that's is there room for me?
Speaker A:Can someone like me do all of it and enjoy all of it?
Speaker A:Do.
Speaker A:Do I even deserve that?
Speaker A:What happens if none of them work out?
Speaker A:Shouldn't I just pick one and stick with it?
Speaker A:Welcome to my brain.
Speaker A:Here's what I learned.
Speaker A:The problem wasn't that I had too many passions.
Speaker A:The problem was that I was taught to pick something I'm good at and make it my job.
Speaker A:But what if you're good at a lot of things?
Speaker A:That teaching to focus on one thing came from everywhere.
Speaker A:My family taught me that.
Speaker A:School taught me that you must pick something when you go to college.
Speaker A:Society says that once you pick that thing, you get your degree and you find a job doing that thing.
Speaker A:But that educational system, that setup is completely flawed for multi passionate people.
Speaker A:I spent about a year working for myself and I made the podcast this show my full time job during the pandemic.
Speaker A:I even landed my first couple of sponsorships because I had 40 hours to dedicate to it.
Speaker A:That showed me two crucial things.
Speaker A:One I can do this, but two, I don't need a full 40 hours if I can get help with things like editing.
Speaker A:The breakthrough came when I stopped trying to separate different parts of myself and started integrating them.
Speaker A:All three brands are now part of each other.
Speaker A:Healing in Hindsight is the main umbrella if you will.
Speaker A:But my professional name, Taylor, Danielle and my Twitch name are aspects of that.
Speaker A:I had all of these separate parts of me that I tried to separate, but they're all me and they're all under Healing in hindsight.
Speaker A:I don't want to hide versions of myself.
Speaker A:I should be able to speak as a professional and be an over the top gamer too.
Speaker A:Now streaming isn't just a separate thing.
Speaker A:It's the experience of my world.
Speaker A:It's my outlet for doing all the creative things I couldn't or felt like I couldn't do otherwise.
Speaker A:I drink water from a 24 ounce chalice.
Speaker A:My office has this bohemian Victorian feel.
Speaker A:I can stream, co working and work my full time job at the same time.
Speaker A:I can work on my website or do business admin work while body doubling wearing a full gown if I want to, which I have done.
Speaker A:Streaming gives me that kind of freedom.
Speaker A:And yeah, I miss gaming sometimes, but it's not the easiest thing to do right now.
Speaker A:The easy one is co working streams where I can be as chatty or as chill as I want to be.
Speaker A:I even have a command or a little short key set up for when I have to go into a meeting.
Speaker A:It just pops a message that Says, hey, I'm in a meeting.
Speaker A:It's finding ways that don't give me room to make excuses while honoring all of those parts of who I am.
Speaker A:And what I mean by that is, before I used to make up all of these excuses as to why I couldn't give each of these different aspects of myself attention, and I felt like I had to, you know, only work on the one thing or do the one thing all on its own, in its own isolated bubble, when the reality is is that I can incorporate them with each other.
Speaker A:At the core of all of this is me, Taylor, Danielle.
Speaker A:That is me.
Speaker A:That is my legal name.
Speaker A:That is who I am.
Speaker A:And all that I am doing by, you know, professionally facing or public facing is just dropping my last name.
Speaker A:Doesn't mean that I don't have one, but it's just putting a layer on almost like clothing.
Speaker A:So I will always be at the core of each of those things.
Speaker A:And I don't need to hide that I'm a professional who was a theater kid and loves the kind of steampunk, dark academia, Victorian era, and likes to dress in that kind of fashion at times, or decorate my office in that way, or use items that are stylized in that way.
Speaker A:I can still be a professional and work full time while also building my own business on the side.
Speaker A:I can be all of these things, and instead of trying to separate them all out and make it seem like they are not allowed to coexist with each other, I've simply just found ways to make that possible.
Speaker A:So, again, going back to the streaming, I stream myself working.
Speaker A:I don't show anything that I'm not allowed to show.
Speaker A:And sometimes it's me literally working on scripts for the show or creating visuals or scheduling posts.
Speaker A:There's a lot of this stuff that you see the finished product of that I've done while literally live streaming on Twitch.
Speaker A:And I think that's great.
Speaker A:And sure, is it nice to be able to, like, stream on Twitch and also play, you know, fantasy games that kind of fit that style that I like.
Speaker A:Who doesn't want.
Speaker A:Well, let me not say that.
Speaker A:Let me not say who doesn't want to live in a fantasy world with magic and stuff like that.
Speaker A:But at least for me, those are the things that I've always liked.
Speaker A:You know, the Skyrims, the Dragon Ages, the Dungeons and Dragons, that.
Speaker A:That whole fantasy kind of realm of things I've always loved.
Speaker A:Who says that I can't wear attire that looks like I'm about to go on a battlefield or you know, do a dungeon delve while, you know, updating my website live.
Speaker A:There's all these things that I can do and that I don't need to hide from because they're all aspects of me.
Speaker A:Even so, I'm.
Speaker A:I'm still working through what success looks like, but there's a couple things that I know so far it's about small, consistent things rather than perfection or big numbers.
Speaker A:I have been doing really well, and I'm really loving the idea of habit stacking.
Speaker A:If I'm already doing task A, what naturally makes sense to help me do task B?
Speaker A:I also don't try to overwhelm myself in my sprint planning that I do each week.
Speaker A:I started with streaming once a week, then twice now three times maximum, usually Monday, Wednesdays, and that leaves my weekends open for rest or social things.
Speaker A:Getting ahead on recording means I can spend more time editing and scheduling things out.
Speaker A:Yes, sometimes when I am streaming it's only to do people, but that shouldn't stop me.
Speaker A:While I'm streaming, I'm actually recording at the same time, so I get footage that I can use for content creation.
Speaker A:I have B roll and all this stuff like that that I can use.
Speaker A:A video of me just typing can be used just as much as me ranting about a game character I don't like.
Speaker A:And there are a lot of them.
Speaker A:But the guilt about not picking one thing doesn't show up as much anymore.
Speaker A:Now it's more about pushing myself not to give up because I'll never know if it's possible if I don't give it proper time and consistency when that annoying voice in my head pops up asking, shouldn't you just focus on one thing?
Speaker A:I want people to see that I'm multifaceted.
Speaker A:There's no one angled to me, so I will talk about it and work on the podcast while streaming.
Speaker A:I'm more open about streaming on Twitch and my other content.
Speaker A:I use Taylor Danielle as my professional name in all three areas.
Speaker A:There is no hiding that there will be some letting go eventually, but that's more about when something like Healing in Hindsight can run itself.
Speaker A:I would love to have a small team to handle a lot of backend things while I just sit down and record because that would free me up to do other things and that second legacy not just a content creator.
Speaker A:So here's what I want you to know.
Speaker A:If you're struggling with too many passions, the goal isn't to eliminate your interest.
Speaker A:Finding ways for them to work together sustainably is ask yourself what's one step you can take that helps all areas work together?
Speaker A:Just that one and see what happens.
Speaker A:If it works well, do it again when that's found its rhythm.
Speaker A:When you've gotten a flow with that, then work on the next collaborative step.
Speaker A:If it feels too big, ask how can we make it smaller and more in flow?
Speaker A:I feel like success for multi passionate people isn't about becoming the best at one thing while ignoring everything else.
Speaker A:It's about finding sustainable ways to honor all parts of who you are without burning yourself out trying to manage separate identities.
Speaker A:You don't have to choose between your passions, you just have to get creative about how they can support each other instead of competing for your attention.
Speaker A:Honestly, I feel the world needs more people who can see connections across different fields, who bring diverse perspectives, who refuse to be put in a single box.
Speaker A:Your multiple passions aren't a problem to solve, they're gifts to integrate.
Speaker A:So here's what I want from you.
Speaker A:If you're multi passionate and struggling with this same challenge, share this episode with someone who needs to hear that they don't have to pick just one thing.
Speaker A:Leave a review about your own multi passionate journey and hit me up on Instagram at Healing In Hindsight, I want to hear about your creative projects, unfinished endeavors, and how you're learning to honor all parts of yourself.
Speaker A:Until next time, remember that there is room for all of you.
Speaker A:The challenge isn't choosing, it's integrating.
Speaker A:Keep healing, keep creating, but make it sustainable.
