Last Updated on August 9, 2024
Hobby to profit…
That’s exactly how some billionaires in the world today became rich. Just do some quick googling. You’ll come across an endless list of famous personalities that turned their passion into prosperity.
Hold on…we are not here to tell you to drop out of college or resign from your current job to pursue your passion project. Not at all. We are here to guide you on how you can find a side hustle that will help you live a fulfilling life.
But before we fire up the engines, let’s first go through a couple of reasons why having a passion project matters.
Why should you have a passion project?
To have fun
You are aware that doing something you love is usually fun, right? Even if it doesn’t get you super-pumped, it is usually easy and helps you put your creative juices to work. Besides, you will always feel great for any smaller daily achievements.
Expand your portfolio
Most advertised jobs require someone to possess a degree or work experience to qualify. What if you don’t have either? Well, worry less. Personal projects, in themselves, can be used as part of your resume thus making you the most qualified candidate for a job.
Personal growth
Passionate projects can bring out the best in you. Through your continued commitment, you might be able to uncover your strengths, weaknesses, and other attributes you never knew about.
Improve your happiness
There are a lot of things in life that can make you happy. One of them is your favorite project. But you are probably wondering how. Well, for a start, you are always in control of everything and that makes you feel happy and satisfied. Imagine a project where your boss or parent dictates everything; can you be fully happy? We doubt that.
Secondly, if your project is non-profit or community-based, you definitely will feel happy anytime you look back on what you have done for others.
Become awesome
You have watched YouTube videos or interviews of self-made ninjas, right? It gets to a point where you admire their journeys, follow them on social media, or even sign up for their podcasts. Why? Because they are indeed awesome. With a successful personal project, many people will find you to be amazing.
Go places and meet people
Imagine how many good and cool people you have met through your career? There are many. The same happens with passion projects. When done well, their success can get you moving from one place to another for meetings, public speaking, and other forums. Through these channels, you not only get to see the world but meet meaningful people who make life worth living.
Make money
Passionate projects don’t start from a money-making vantage point. However, some of them can grow big quickly to move from a side gig to a full-time hustle. At this point, you’ll have to come up with a business plan, marketing techniques, and even hire more talent.
How to launch a passion project
So how do you know your passion project? How do you single it out from the multiple confusing choices? Baffling, right. But don’t worry; here’s how you can find your passion project:
1. Write down a list of all the things that interest you
It should be easy to write down a list of things you like doing. Be guided by your life’s experiences. Don’t just jump on something because other people are into it. The point is, the project must be exciting to keep you hooked to the end. This way, your time and resources will not be wasted.
2. Consider the size
If you have a lot of time on your hands, then you don’t need to worry about entertaining mega-scale ideas. However, if this is your side project, then you must shrink it to a level where it will run smoothly alongside your other daytime (or nighttime) activities. More importantly, make sure your project works within a specified budget.
3. Commit to one project
It’s very easy to give up when something is not progressing as fast as you wanted. Sometimes that’s the nature of things. However, never leave a project midway to start another or work on several at the same time. Be realistic with your time, resources, and other things that demand your attention so you don’t have to abort the project halfway.
4. It’s okay to imitate existing projects
Everything new is basically an upgrade or modification of something else. The same goes for your project. While we are not saying you go about duplicating other people’s ventures, it is still okay to use them for inspiration. This way, not only will your project launch sooner but you’ll have a clear picture of what it needs to be as well.
Passion Project ideas
We know how hard it can be to come with ideas. This stage is so hard that some people fail to make a choice (maybe because of choice paralysis). If you are lost for ideas, try out the following:
Write short stories
Have you ever wanted to write a novel, journal, research material? Good. Let those creative juices start flowing. There are many online publishing sites like Scribd where you can upload your content for the world to read.
Backyard passion projects
If you have a backyard, you can spruce it up with the latest landscape designs. Just Google ‘‘landscape design pictures’’ and you’ll have plenty of splendid designs you can adopt.
Gardening is also another idea worth exploring if you have a fairly big space. If you love nature, birds, and animals, you can also start a project that ensures pollinators have a place to call home.
Health and wellness projects
Health and fitness niche has grown so much in popularity. People are flocking to the internet to learn about weight loss exercises and other wellness products. While the market is clearly saturated, you can niche down and say become a yoga instructor, YouTuber, or marathon trainer.
Crafting ideas
You can take up knitting, crocheting, or even pottery classes. These are timeless arts which with a bit of creativity, can result in extremely fascinating products. Take bottle decoration for instance. You can use any nicely shaped bottle and decorate it into an astonishing piece of art for interior decoration.
Are you good with tools? Do you have an eye for creativity? If so then you can refurbish vintage and other old furniture. Other craft ideas you can look into include woodworking projects, painting, and upcycling old clothes.
Tech project ideas
Technology is changing with rapid speed. This has made coding, programming, and other technology courses so hot. This is a pretty big direction to go and it could take years for you to properly master either coding or programming. From there, you can use your knowledge to create games, apps, and other programs.
Don’t be limited to common projects like web design that high schoolers too learn. Go as far as making name generators, automating systems, a mapmaker, a chess engine, niche chatbot, a spam classifier, a showtime finder, spoiler blocker, music suggestion tool, microlearning app, slack bot (to make a team’s work easy)…and the list is pretty much endless.
Here are more passion project ideas worth considering:
- Cooking (exploring as many recipes as possible)
- Bike riding (and taking part in neighborhood rides)
- Starting a non-profit organization
- Learn a new instrument
- Film a movie
- Write music
- Start a podcast
- Take stock market lessons
- Community work
- You can also continue with your education (degree, masters, and PhD)
Wrap up
Your passion project is not something you need to put on the back burner. It’s basically one of those little fabulous things that make your everyday life happy and fulfilling. A personal project can be done even while you are waiting for your turn at the dentist, at the bus stop, or in a subway on your way home.
We know that time is going to become short on some days. That’s expected. However, if you find yourself postponing your project every other day, then you may never progress at all. Therefore, make sure you have a solid plan or a system in place to help you become organized.
Meta description
Do you have a passion project? If you are not yet passionate about anything, then read this article for some inspiration. We have listed some great passion project ideas worth trying out.
