10 Things Truly Passionate People Do

As our life takes a new direction and we come into a new season, all that we are learning and discovering is absolutely amazing to me. A new world has emerged and it's a pretty beautiful place. Find what drives you personally. If you're married, learn what your husband's heart passion is. Take an active part. Allow him to be an active part of yours. What drives him? Find what makes you who you are. And then fill your life with all that you love. Because in it lies your purpose.

"Loving what you do each day is not a fairytale, it’s not out of reach and it’s not a possibility for only a select few. Everyone can use their unique talents and interests to become successful, content and happy – it just takes effort, persistence and sheer willpower."

There comes a point when it's just time to make stuff happen. It's not about sitting around being at the mercy of whatever God brings into your life. The victimized Christian. It's knowing what drives you, motivates you, is your passion, and knowing it's been placed within you for a reason. You follow that, act on it, allow it to become the avenue into other people's lives. When a door closes or opens there is confidence that God is directing it every step of the way, and you just keep moving like a freight train, because He's driving it. To make things happen is not usurping God's will or authority, it is trusting that He will open and close the necessary doors in an area that is already fueled by Him. The world is full of apathy and mediocrity. Be the person that happens to your surroundings. Be passionate about your life. If you're not, change it up until you are.

Are you willing to go the distance to turn your passion into purpose?"


I found this article to be so entirely true when describing both husband and myself. It also helps you determine what your passion in life really is. Where does your mind consistently go? What is your dream? It tells the story of who you are...and all that it's not too late to be.

Written by Paul Hudson for Elite Daily

Being passionate is important in life, but it also can be difficult to deal with. Just like with all good things, too much of it can be damaging. However, passionate people, overall, do live happier and better lives than the average individual.

Passions give us purpose, but more than that, they make us feel that we have purpose in our lives. Being passionate isn’t just about knowing – it’s also about feeling. That’s what makes passions so important; they make us feel that we’re on the right path in life and give us hope for a happy and exciting future.

Passionate people lead significantly different lives from their less-than-enthusiastic counterparts. Here are 10 things that passionate people do differently and the good and bad that comes of it.

1. Start their days early.

It’s not that passionate people don’t enjoy sleeping – they do. It’s just that once they’re up, they get excited about the work ahead of them. Even if the particular project or tasks they will be working on may not excite them, their future aspirations and the passion they have for what they do drive them to get out of bed rather quickly. Passionate people are all about doing and you can’t do much if you spend half the day sleeping.

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2. Always have their passions on their mind.

They’re basically obsessed – hopefully in a healthy manner. Healthy passions are healthy obsessions. You can’t keep your mind from returning to the topic and can’t help but get excited by those thoughts. Passionate people live in a world in which the few things that matter to them in life basically involve the passions they love.

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3. Get excited more than the average person.

Passionate individuals may not always feel excited – no one is excited all the time – but when they get excited, they get excited more fully, for a longer duration and, overall, more frequently.

It’s because they have more in their lives to get excited about. They devote their time to usually one or two things and therefore make more progress than those who split their time amongst many things. The momentum keeps them excited.

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4. Get pissed off and emotional more than the average person.

Just as the passionate get excited, they also can come off as very moody. They go from happy and excited to pissed off and miserable. Because they are passionate, they are much more emotionally connected to whatever it is they are doing – so when things go well, the world is a beautiful place, but when things go awry, sh*t gets real very quickly.

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5. Willing to risk more and put more on the line.

If you’re passionate, you have a clear understanding of what your purpose in life is – if only your purpose for that very moment. For this reason, you give much less importance to other things. Therefore you’re willing to risk more for the thing(s) that you find most important, that you are most passionate about. Those that are passionate are much more willing to give up things that don’t fall in their scope of passion.

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6. Devote their lives to their dreams.

Life is filled with things worth doing and things not worth doing. That which we are most passionate about is what we believe to be worthwhile, everything else seems to be wasteful and lacking. Passionate individuals gradually gravitate towards their passions and away from the rest that life has to offer. They know what will make them happy and are willing to ignore the rest.

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7. Surround themselves with their work.

People say that it isn’t good to bring work home. However, for the most passionate, work is home. It’s not possible for these individuals not to bring their work home because their work is in them and reflects in everything they have and do. But it doesn’t feel like work to them. It feels like life.

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8. Can’t help but talk about their projects.

They know that you probably don’t want to hear about it because you hear about it all the time, but they don’t really want to talk about much else. And even if they do, their conversations almost always steer back to their passions. They can’t help it because they don’t see their passions as separate from themselves; they are their passions.

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9. Tend to either be pushing ahead full throttle or are completely still.

Passionate people aren’t always the best at balancing their lives. They get overly excited and push themselves to their limits. They love working and love moving forward quickly. But they eventually do run out of steam and crash. Only the seasoned and wise passionate individuals have learned to balance havoc and calm in a healthy manner.

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10. Always think positively about the future.

Their minds are always looking ahead, looking at what can be instead of what is. This has its good sides and bad, but nevertheless, they are always thinking about their next move.

The one great outcome is that they always have something to look forward to and are excited to make it happen. As long as they remember to hang around in the present from time to time, they don’t run into too much trouble.

Just Pics...

Cause there's not time for more. The transformation of our relationship with neighbor continues to amaze me. We have transitioned from absolute hostility to total love. And sometimes....speaking a love language looks a little bit like a tricolored ball of 6 month energy. As our relationship has progressed over the months she eventually learned that all of our animals throughout the course of our marriage have been rescues. With that knowledge is her heart for us grew a little. She is a foster home for multiple dogs and cats and an adoptive mom of 4 abused horses, 4 dogs, and a.....few.....cats. And she went dog shopping for us. When the shelter hit full capacity she brought it to our attention that this puppy would be quite the fit for our family and it's days were numbered. With one day to spare before euthanization we headed to the animal shelter....and came home with a new member of the family. Neighbor has become astoundingly amiable these days. She now has our girls caring for horses and foster dogs while oldest works on pasture fencing and other odd upkeep jobs. Younger kids are paid to pick squash bugs and weed garden. And life in our little house buried beyond the trees, next to her sprawling green pasture and grazing horses, is peaceful in every way. It feels good to be loved in return and live in peace. Love and kindness....they should be such simple concepts. They are things taught from childhood. So, why, as an adult, are they still so hard to comprehend when transformation of hearts occur?

The kids definitely don't mind the new addition.

Her new best buddy.

A glimpse of what life is like before a group pic.

So maybe we weren't exactly in the market for this dog but she's proven to be a pretty fun addition to the chaos.

The absurdity of meal times. Because we never did find a solution for the dining room issue in this house....this is what dinner looks like. And we tear it all right back down when it's over. Stash the table, stash the chairs to do it all again the next day.

When it grows quiet it can't be good.

My view as I work.

Behind the wheel these days. I'm kinda in love with the hair.

Birthday celebrations.

When they're not outside....

Spring. And warmth. And sun.

Pretty days spent training.

Rainy mornings and coffee with a view.

When it all comes back to life. Wind whispers through new leaves at top and all the forest is enchanted. It's a pretty magical place to be.

Will There Be A #13?

That seems to be the most popular question of our life these days. And because I really do not consider this a sensitive topic or controversial subject I honestly have no problem answering it. No, there have not been any miscarriages that I have chosen not to blog.

Husband and I have said throughout our marriage that if we ever reached a point where we felt we needed to slow, or even cease, having kids we were not opposed to that. If it ever reached a point where we felt that the other kids were not flourishing as they could because of a mom forever pregnant or nursing than we would reevaluate all of life. When the moment came that we had 12 kids, 9 of those 8 and under, 4 of those 2 and under, and all of life revolved around just surviving a little red headed wild man, his twin, a 14 month old that was still very much a baby, and a newborn, along with the full time schedule of nursing and sleepless nights...we realized the need to talk had arrived. I honestly wouldn't trade it....any of it. I absolutely love....thrive on...having kids. They enable me to see life with different eyes. They have been the biggest form of self transformation within my life. They have softened all of life, filed down rough edges, taken me to soul searching depths...because I absolutely refuse to raise critical, judgmental, unkind people. But that can never be attained if we, as parents, are critical, judgmental, arrogant people. We do not have children for religious reasons, we do not think birth control is a sin, we do not advocate for all of the world to reproduce in mass quantity. We do not even begin to believe that if you have only 1 or 2, choose not to have any at all....or choose to no longer have more children after 8 or 10 or 12.....that you are any less of a person or that you are living in sin to some large family imposed mindset that one person's conviction about birth control now applies to the entirety of all humanity. Neither of us prescribe to the thought that if our own children choose not to marry or ever have children of their own, all of their life pursuing a passion, gift or talent placed innately within their being, that they are wrong. It does, in fact, free them in so many ways to be uninhibited and to follow that talent, gift, passion, or "calling"...whatever your choice of words....to pursue what has been placed there. There has been talk of some of our older ones wishing to only adopt rather than have biological children and we are fully supportive of that. Now, more than ever, I think large family mentality, over time, has taken on the attitude that if you do not reproduce in obnoxious numbers that you are living out from under the "will of God" or "instruction of Scripture". Pretty pathetic and just one more reason to judge, condemn, and run more people off with the ever notorious black leather book, as they thump away. How can one even assume to write the book on a one size fits all prescription for Christianity and convictions by which to live?  Or course, there is the extreme other side of the pendulum that consists of the modern American church mentality that looks at the quiver full movement as absolutely crazed psychotic nuts and advocates the use of birth control and a sensible 3 kids.



I don't feel one can ever really address this topic without also addressing the "religious" aspect so often associated with the whole large family idea and what people tend to assume about it all. We do not fall in either category of belief....quiverfull or "sensible, responsible American Christian citizen".  Neither can I address Christianity without also voicing my weariness and disgust with it. I no longer want to be lumped into the so called "Christian" category anymore at all. I still believe....truly believe in Christ...but the legalism and amount of whipping each other to death with the theological and/or conviction measuring stick is enough to send the other 98% of the human race buying airfare to Tibet and seeking advice from the Dalai Lama. However, among the quiver full movement I think many parents struggle and actually do go on to use birth control of some sort. It is a rarely discussed topic, as most of them feel condemned for even entertaining thoughts of it....not to mention following through with it. Many....many.....live in fear of judgment and being looked down upon for their choices. This, to me, is so sad. Absolutely tragic....that a Christian cannot even come forth with real life issues for fear of being beat to death, judged and condemned by their so called "brothers and sisters in Christ". What kind of religion is this anyway????? What is supposed to be the most important aspect of life....your own personal spiritual journey and wellbeing....is disabling people to live in freedom and the grace they preach due to all of the legalism. This is so much more far reaching than the quiver full mentality. It is pervasive in the church as a whole. It is, perhaps, one of the most divisive, argumentative, hypocritical, arrogant, exclusional religions of all time....driving people away, separating families, costing relationships. I think it is entirely possible to be a believer in Christ and walk out a personal lifetime journey of it without prescribing to "modern Christianity". A blog post for the someday. We have close friends here, quite a few of them that believe much like we do, and I am grateful for an entire facebook world of friends that do not condemn or judge and are only full of encouragement and support. But, for these friends we do have within the Christian movement are that many more who have absolutely sent the world running from the religion....us included. Oneday I will fix this and all the wounds caused by the spiritual whipping of each other. Because with one act of kindness, one act of love, one less critical person, an entire world can be changed. People severely underestimate the ripple effect. Because a few people had the courage to love and walk outside of the prescribed box.....religious and non religious alike...an entire world is changed.



So, will there be a 13? Not now. A year has almost passed, as she is 9 1/2 months old, and as we near the 12 month milestone we have again reevaluated. Right now, there are other areas of life that need tending. There are independent passions that need to be developed more than what we have the ability to accomplish with forever scheduling life around a pregnancy, birth and newborn. There are financial milestones we feel we need to accomplish before adding yet another baby. There is a vision that burns within us, and it is time to act upon it. There are individual fires and passions that burn within the lives of the 12 children in front of us. They need to see us live life by example.

So, reality is, she very well may be our last. At the age of 38, to wait for more may mean no more at all. I would absolutely love to have one or two more...but now is not the time. Because of that, we enter into this with open hearts knowing that perhaps in another year we will again revisit the topic and decide how to pursue life from there. But, for now, we focus on the 12 we do have and the vision we feel has been placed within our hearts.

Because Everybody Needs to Hear This: Stifling Creativity

The title is deceiving, as anyone who knows homeschoolers and/or large families knows they typically are constantly finding fault with the education system. However, this applies across the board on every level. This applies to people who have never had kids to those who have, to educators and to those who feel stuck in mundane jobs they despise. An intriguing, humorous delivery by an English college professor. Very much worth the time it takes to listen to in its entirety.



Find your passion. We are being taught as a society at large that we can never make a living doing what we love...that we will never succeed at what is innately instilled within us individually....our passions. We, as a society, are being educated out of living up to our full potential. My favorite part of this, there are many but if I had to choose one, is the story of Gillian Lynne.

What's Your Why?

Running changes you. It just does. It does every single time I put one foot in front of the other. It does every single time mind screams to quit, every single time muscles scream to take a break. When you run you find yourself. You find everything you're made of. You awaken your spiritual side. You awaken your mental side. You awaken your physical side. And you have to face the reality that you're either a quitter or you're not. Every push-up. Every squat. The only person responsible for success or failure....is me. The only person that stopped and gave up was....me. The only person that succeeded and overcame it all was....me. And in running and pushing and challenging absolutely everything I am....I've found everything I can be...or everything I choose not to be.

And I've found my why.

When you learn to overcome your circumstances, when your passion overrides your fear, when your desire is bigger than your apathy, when your determination rises above your victimized mentality....you go places and you become someone.

The vision is big. And for the first time in life I know I can do it. Because we haven't been through everything we have for it not to mean something. We haven't come this far not to have a story. I didn't live through my 6 year old being beaten and raped, I didn't live out a horrific miscarriage, I didn't live out losing relationships, I didn't live out 2 entire years of sickness and mice and mold and learn to love the way we have, learn to forgive the way we have, learn to be kind the way we have, learn to feel compassion so deep that it aches, learn to walk in integrity even when it means making parts of my life harder, when it allows others an unfair advantage, when it exposes my weaknesses, when it means no one else would ever know the difference, when it requires me to treat others better than we've been treated. I didn't learn to turn away from the overwhelming grip of temptation....for it all not to mean something. I've found my why.

And so I pursue it with everything within me. Because my children are going to know that anything is possible. This woman that doesn't even possess a GED, that never passed an English class, this girl that never made it past 9th/10th grade, this soul that searches insatiably for so much more knowledge...that yearns to know more.....is going back to school and starting a business and a passion. And I will be successful. I want my husband to pursue his passion. I want my children to pursue their passions. I want them to see and know that anything is possible. I want my husband to be a fighter, lover of all things jiu jitsu that he is. I want my boys and girls to fight and know what it is to overcome themselves. I want them to wrestle with the devil within and know that they're stronger than anything trying to take hold. You choose to stay a victim or you choose to overcome. You. And only you. If you want change, make it happen. If you want success, make it happen. If you want to live your passion, make it happen. I want a Gracie jiu jitsu black belt in my husband. I want to see him thrive in his passion, to make a profession out of it, to compete, to walk into a room with intimidating confidence yet exude the humility that so intimately accompanies the practice of the art, to be the badass that he is...tattoos and earrings, Cageside shirts....to know he lives his passion. I want Grayson to know and see that professional biking is not just a dream. It can be a reality. Those football scouts and scholarships may very well take him to the NFL. And he's good enough to make it happen. He doesn't have to conform to the mold and live in the white or blue collared box. I want Evye to know that the box the world stuffs a woman within is not what has to shape her nor does she have to live within the confines of it. Refusing to conform doesn't necessarily mean embracing feminism but neither does her life have to embody the essence of only nursing babies without enriching other aspects and God given passions. What IS her passion? What has been put into her own personal heart? It's just not too late to change the course of history and generations. And it starts with me. Because I can go to school, pursue my passion, start a business. I can teach my children and be successful in a world that desperately needs kinder, less judgmental people. Success may or may not encompass monetary gain. Success simply means living out the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. And I can be...I will be....successful. So can my husband and so can each and every one of our children. I can help my husband be everything he wants to be. I can teach my children to live out their passions. Screw the box.

Call it a midlife crisis. Or maybe see it for what it really is.....that you only grow older and years pass....and you're still in that job wishing it were different. You're still counting on the "someday" to have time to pursue all your passions. Make your life your passion. It was instilled within you for a reason. Just because I want more doesn't have to mean I've forsaken the calling of motherhood. It means I'm actively learning time management and have to perfect the art of managing my life and priorities, self discipline in ways I never imagined. It means I've learned that I can sit with a baby in my lap and still love each and every one of them with a pencil in my hand and a book in front of me. I don't have children for religious reasons. I have children because I absolutely love having kids. I love the raw unfiltered joy they bring...the fun and the humor to life. And part of my responsibility of raising every single one of them is teaching them that success in life is carrying out...living out...the passions and gifts that have been instilled within them. It means teaching them that success is not defined by your paycheck or my standards or conforming. It means being a free thinker...an absolute independent person that can only fulfill their life purpose when they are free from society's mold. It means living out the example. It means I've learned to work hard and get up early and take my day captive. I love my children more than life itself....I love them more than anything I ever remotely thought possible....and I'm going to be the example they need to give them the wings and the courage to pursue it all and fly. They've been given specific passions and interests for a reason. "You don't have to control your thoughts. You just have to let them stop controlling you." I teach them this knowing it will allow them to fly free from the bondage which held me captive.  I refuse to leave the legacy of the could've been, I never tried, I wish I'd done. They will know above all else that "of course, it's hard. It's supposed to be hard. If it were easy everyone would be doing it. Hard is what makes it great." Ten years is going to go by whether you do anything with it or not...so let it tell your story. Write your story. Find your calling and execute it with precision. Chase it. Pursue it. Don't give up until you've obtained it. "People often fool themselves into the comfortable life by reasoning that taking "baby steps" is sufficient. But if we are forever taking baby steps...living life without bold steps and those chancy bets of courage that are the mark of greatness....than our character and dreams will forever languish in their infancy. To live a fully charged life, we must allow the risk and vulnerability of those great leaps into the unknown. Let us be so brave."

So I've registered for school and all the knowledge for which I yearn. I will be a certified nutritionist, certified herbalist, certified yoga instructor, certified personal trainer, and certified health coach by the end of it all. I am taking a class on religion because I want to know why I'm not an atheist but no longer can tolerate the attitude and mentality of exclusion in modern American Christianity. I pursue my passion of physical fitness, holistic health and wellness, and perhaps on to an Applied Science Degree in Alternative Medicine. It is the culmination of everything in life up to this point. All that I learned during my 7 years of midwifery, all that I have gained from my own personal weight struggle, my passion for writing, my love for working from home, all the years of learning and growing I have done as an individual, we have done as a couple, and we have accomplished as a family. I will show my children that it's never too late to pursue your dream. Shift husband joins me as he goes back to school also and returns to intense training to make his dream a reality. Together we change the course of history for our family and for generations to come. Because I know my why. What's yours?

You will struggle.

You will sweat.

You will cry.

You will want to give up.

But, above all, you will overcome.

Because you were meant to be great.

And they will know and live by this.