My Top 5 Passion Projects for 2018

I was scrolling through Instagram last night, as I usually do before bed, and stumbled upon the idea of passion projects. I thought it was just another Instagram hashtag that people were using, but I did some research (aka a Google search) and it’s actually a thing! A passion project is essentially a side project that interests you. Initially that seems pretty broad but I think that’s what makes it a great concept. I love the idea of having projects outside of your daily work life that is centered around a topic that you are passionate about.

There have been plenty of things that I have always had an interest in but I always had some excuse not to pursue them. While I was in college my excuse was because I was “poor” and needed to study. Last year my excuse was because I had to focus and save up for the wedding. This year, I’m not going to allow myself to have any excuses and give myself the opportunity to invest in my own passion projects.

1. Re-learn how to play the piano.

I played piano for around nine years when I was younger but “hated it” and quit. I don’t think I was able to appreciate how it would help me creatively and mentally. Now at age 25, I find myself yearning to start playing again. The only thing I asked for this past Christmas was an electric keyboard. It has been so much fun to re-learn and play after many years. My goal for the year is to be able to play the full Fur Elise by next Christmas!

2. Continue writing this blog.

As I mentioned in my last post, I have really been enjoying writing on this blog! I heard once that a good indicator of what you should do for a career was to think about what you do in your free time. I have been finding myself wanting to write blog posts in my free time. While I’m not sure about the whole career aspect, I do think it would be the perfect topic for one of my passion projects!

3. Create a yearbook.

I have recently been loving everything Emily Ley. I even bought my own Simplified Planner! She recently posted about yearbooks she makes for her family that are filled with pictures throughout the year. I have made photobooks in the past including our wedding album, a book of our China trip and a few for our anniversaries back in high school. I take a ton of pictures throughout the year but never do anything with them. Since I love documenting our lives (hence why I started this blog), I think it would be a fun passion project to create a pretty book that we can keep throughout the years.

4. Set up travel guides.

Traveling is something that I love to do! Sometime I may love a little more than the actual traveling is the planning of the trip. I have a system that I follow to research and create our itineraries (which I plan on writing about later). So it only makes sense for me to put them into an organized and pretty (duh) format for me to be able to reference to later! And share with others if friends ask for recommendations.

5. Write down Tan family recipes.

I am very proud to be Chinese and am lucky to have two parents and an extremely adorable grandmother who cook the best Chinese food. I wanted to make a Tan family cookbook last year and even took pictures for it. But with the wedding (I know, I know excuse #2) I didn’t get around to doing it. This year with the help of my parents and grandma, I want to really document how to cook all of my favorite dishes (and maybe even post about them here too).

I could probably go on and on about various passion projects in my life, but I think these five are the main ones I would like to focus on this year. They are all things that I currently love to do and thinking about working on them makes me happy! This year is shaping up to be a year of goals and passion and I’m looking forward to all that is to come.

Happy project-ing!

Vivian