Minimum Viable Passion

7/25/2018

Minimum Viable Passion

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That’s how it goes when you’re sick. Your body doesn’t discriminate between the “gotta do’s” and the “get to do’s”...

I’ve been sick this week. Not the gradually slow-moving lava that creeps until you are finally full-blown “sick” - but the 0 to 60 sick where one minute you feel good, the next minute you’re iffy and the next minute you can’t hold your head up. On Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, I slept until noon. Noon! Usually if I’m sick, I may be in and out of sleep, or desperately wanting sleep, but can’t get more than an hour here or there.

I was home from work and #amazinghubby did everything, not just for me and for the kids starting back at school, but he was on stomach flu duty with Mr. 6 on Tuesday. Aside from sleeping, I just laid in bed, taking full advantage of Netflix auto play and listening to audio books. (BTW - what does it say if the first book I burned through while sick in bed was Marie Kondo’s “The Magical Art of Tidying Up”?) It was a forced break from everything and, while it clearly shows my trouble letting go of control on the work front; I really struggled with missing crocheting and the blog and sharing fun pics.

Clearly, Gray Day Crochet is my passion project. I’m plenty busy with my 9-5 and looking after 2 exuberant monkeys 🐒 🐒 - but not being able to do anything for the site left me really unsettled. Being sick doesn’t just mean some of the unsavory jobs are paused or covered by others, but it also means the good stuff is on hiatus. We all remember the disappointment from being sick as s kid and missing out on a birthday party or other exciting activity. In December, hubby wanted to fulfill a dream and rented a Mustang to drive around Hawaii because he’d been sharing a passion for Mustangs all year with Mr. 6. When the day arrived, Mr. 6 has the stomach flu (again! He seems to get that a lot.) So he was stuck in our room for the day and missed the adventure we’d been hyping for ages. That’s how it goes when you’re sick. Your body doesn’t discriminate between the “gotta do’s” and the “get to do’s” - you just shut down and miss out on all of this.

One of the biggest negatives is the loss of the renewing effects of my passion project. Part of the reason I spend any time on it at all is the enormous benefits that a little bit of effort unlocks. My crocheting reduces stress and builds relationships with the people in my life as I pour my heart into a project for someone. The online communities build wonderful networks of kindred spirits who get this quirky niche and connect with the technical sides of the craft. Writing patterns stimulates my creativity and really allows me to channel a lot of my subconscious energy into something productive. I get mental, emotional and physical benefits from crocheting and when I’m sick, I feel the need for those benefits most acutely.

While there is a role for accepting the forced rest that being sick thrusts upon you, this time around, I started thinking about it there were any crochet benefits I could still access while sick. What was my MVP (Minimum Viable Passion)? As I thought through this I came up with a few options. 1) Enjoy the crochet inspiration on Insta. 2) Connect with the online forums. 3) Find the most basic project and see if I can do anything on it while lying sick in bed.

I was able to do some of each of those things. Rather than an all or nothing stance, I was able to find a 5-10% option that still gave me some of the benefits I yearn for in my crocheting pursuits. And that MVP input delivered an amazing yield. Because I was so desperate, every bit of benefit made a big difference.

Maybe the biggest shift was in my mentality. Rather than focusing on what I couldn’t do, I focused on what I could do. I moved from an attitude of disappointment to an attitude of possibility. I was profoundly thankful for my MVP. Now the challenge is to work out how to apply this attitude and gratefulness to the other areas of my life.

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Minimum Viable Passion

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