Blog: Are you a jackhammer or a hummingbird?

<p>Have you ever met someone who’s always known what they wanted to do?</p> <p>They were 5 years old and <em>sure</em> they’d be a writer or a nurse or an engineer, went and did exactly that, and are <em>still doing</em> it to this day? You probably have.</p> <p>And while those people didn’t set out to make the rest of us feel bad … it sort of happens inadvertently, doesn’t it?</p> <p>Liz Gilbert (the author of <em>Eat, Pray, Love</em> and <a href= "https://clarityonfire.com/big-magic/" target="_blank" rel= "noopener"><em>Big Magic</em></a>) calls these people “jackhammers.” As in, they drill down with mega-focus on <em>one thing</em> that they’re <em>really</em> passionate about and they hammer away at it forever. She’s a self-admitted jackhammer, herself, when it comes to being a writer.</p> <p>She gave a talk a few years ago (<a href= "http://www.supersoul.tv/supersoul-sessions/what-a-soul-mate-truly-is-and-why-you-might-not-want-to-marry-him-2/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">definitely worth a listen</a>) about how she mistakenly assumed that <em>everyone</em> was like this. Not only did she realize that she was dead wrong, but she had no idea how badly non-jackhammers often feel about themselves.</p> <p><strong>There are a <em>whole lot of us</em> who think there must be something wrong if we don’t have an all-consuming passion that we’re mega-focused on for our entire lives.</strong></p> <p>We feel like there’s something <em>they</em> (the jackhammers) understand that we haven’t figured out yet. And we can spend <em>years</em> (if not decades) feeling frustrated and hopeless about our search for an all-consuming passion … but never finding it.</p> <p>But as it turns out, jackhammers are actually <em>really</em> rare. Liz concluded, and I totally agree, that <em>maybe</em> 5% of the population fits the jackhammer bill. The rest of us? We’re something else entirely, and it’s nothing to feel dejected about. In fact, it’s arguably even <em>more</em> fascinating.</p> <p>IF YOU LIKED THIS YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO…</