Why I Ended My Passion Project
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This month, I did something that I could not have envisioned doing at this time last year. After investing four and a half years into it, I finally decided to end my passion project, I Heart ROC. I will always value the relationships I built by interviewing my fellow Rochesterians and sharing their stories on the site. It was an incredible experience and I am so grateful for it.
So, why did I end it? That’s exactly what I want to share on the blog today. In our society, people are always launching side hustles or passion projects. There’s tons of pressure to monetize your hobby. Do you enjoy baking? Start a bakery! Like making candles at home? Sell them on Etsy! It seems like you can’t do something just for the sake of enjoying it anymore. When I googled “passion project,” I got 470 million results; “side hustle” got 67 million results. Articles like “50 ideas for a lucrative side hustle” and “14 reasons to start a passion project” are everywhere.
There’s an abundance of advice about why you should start a passion project, but no one talks about when to end a passion project. When I googled “end a passion project” the results were mostly things like “how to stop procrastinating on your passion project.” That’s why I thought it would be valuable to share why I ended my passion project. Maybe you’re in the same place I was and need some help deciding. I hope this is useful for you.
Here’s why I ended my passion project.
I got burned out.
Burnout is REAL. There are a lot of great articles about burnout. In one of my favorites, Ella Dawson explains that “you can’t untoast toast.” When you’re burned out, you’re anxious, you’re exhausted, you’re not excited to pursue things you normally enjoy. And it’s not easily fixable. A pedicure or bubble bath won’t solve burnout. Anne Helen Petersen also has a notorious burnout article, which became a book (Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation). Everyone seems to be talking about burnout lately, but we certainly haven’t cured this systemic issue.
For me, getting burned out with I Heart ROC meant that I was no longer excited to do the interviews I used to look forward to. In the past, I did every interview in person. It was an amazing way to get to know people! I made so many connections and had fascinating conversations. Part of my growing disillusionment may have come from switching to Zoom interviews once the pandemic began. I also asked mostly the same questions each time and answers started to sound the same after 200 interviews. I adapted the questions to fit who I was interviewing, and everyone had their own unique stories, but the burnout prevented me from connecting with them as much as I had in the past.
I felt increasingly anxious trying to plan out our content. Is this the right person to feature? Oh no, someone flaked and never sent me their images. Will our audience enjoy this interview? Great, I’ve been ghosted again. I’ve been stood up for in-person interviews and Zoom interviews alike! It was exhausting finding new content to fill each week. 2020 made it even harder with having to adapt on the fly, jumping in and changing content given the need to focus on critical issues like the COVID-19 pandemic or our nationwide reckoning with racism. Working in social media, it’s extremely difficult to take breaks, and that’s even more true in 2020.
It was a LOT of work.
How much work can it be to run a popular Instagram account and website all by yourself? A LOT of work. Seriously. Each and every week, I interviewed someone in person (or over Zoom). At the beginning, I wrote my interview notes by hand and transcribed them later. That became too cumbersome and I eventually switched to bringing my laptop to interviews. Afterwards, I would edit the interview, prepare it for publication on the back end of WordPress, schedule it to go live, and create a graphic with a quote to promote the interview.
Our Instagram had 15,500 followers by the time I wrapped up the project. Each week, we ran an Instagram takeover featuring the person whose interview we were publishing that Friday. This gave them a chance to share their story visually through curated images. That meant I had to provide guidance on what types of photos to include and how to write their captions, then edit their captions once I received them. I’d schedule their content to post to Instagram using Planoly, my favorite scheduling tool. Throughout the week I’d ensure posts went out on time and respond to all comments from our audience. In August, I stopped regularly updating our Facebook and Twitter, but those were previously a time-consuming area of focus too!
So what did I get in return for all this work? Not a whole lot. I’d estimate I spent five hours/week on I Heart ROC. We occasionally did sponsored features that earned us some income. In 2020, we ran two sponsored features. In 2019, we published seven. Sponsorships typically cost $300, though they were even more affordable when we first got started. If you do the math...I was making maybe $6 an hour for all the time I invested into I Heart ROC.
Don’t get me wrong--I LOVED interviewing people, forging relationships, and telling stories. It was worth it to me for a long time. Until it wasn’t anymore. That happens sometimes, and it’s okay.
Other interests were calling me.
What could I do with an extra five hours in my week? I had a few ideas in mind. In 2019 I joined the Board of Cameron Community Ministries, an amazing local organization that we supported through I Heart ROC in a number of ways. We did a book drive for them and organized groups to volunteer together in the soup kitchen. In 2020, I became Vice Chair of the Board, and starting in January 2021, I’ll be serving as Chair. That’s a lot of responsibility and time! I appreciated being able to leverage I Heart ROC to help Cameron, but I know that my own time and leadership will be much more helpful to them in the long run.
In 2020, I’ve also been dipping my toe into creative writing again for the first time in almost three years. What would it be like to write things that aren’t blog posts about marketing or interviews about how great Rochester is? I’ve been crafting short stories, micro-memoirs, and even the occasional poem. It feels good to write for myself and for no one else. I’m excited to keep pursuing it in some of my newfound free time!
So that’s why I ended my passion project. Have you ever wrapped up a passion project? I’d love to hear about it! Tweet me at @servemethesky.
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