I was putting together an event at work last week and a single thought rang through my head.

“I hate putting events together.”

Now, this is a scary thought for a person who has built her life and career towards putting together events. I did an event internship in college. I have gone through certification training for events. My blog is about events!

So, I took a day, ran to the beach to work out what had gone wrong and how to fix it. The beach is one of my calm places and has very few distractions. I put my feet in the sand and worked through this.

So what has gone “wrong”. I had 4 main points that I came up with.

1.My personal life has been intense lately.

For various reasons, I had to cancel my bachelorette party. (I am sitting about 100 yards away from the house that had been rented for that weekend as I write this.) My bridal party has had some shake ups, due to no fault of the people involved but life in general. Plus, working a full-time job, running a blog, and creating an online course about trade shows that will be released in the next two months. Oh, and wedding planning (with help). It has been a lot and your personal life spills over into your work life and vis-aversa.

2. I have been focusing on the negatives of what people say about my events.

Before my above scary thought, I was running through the litany of complaints that I was sure would be aired because they had been aired at previous events. Complaints about location, decorations, food, the choice of drink, etc. Now, none of these complaints have been stated about one single event – but about events over two and a half years. But that was all I heard in my head.

3. I have done enough events that they have started to become routine.

With over a decade of events under my belt, I have learned a ton and I am able to put together simple events with ease. I now have an instinctive knowledge of what needs to be done and no longer get excited about the company happy hour or other events that I have done dozens of times. It is the same basic items, just the minute details change. I can plan, set up, and tear down on autopilot.

4. Events are hard work.

Events often require long days with very little breaks. Often, setting up the tables and chairs is the least strenuous part of the day. If you do not enjoy the events, it just makes the days longer.

Now, how am I going to turn this around? I refuse to give up. I love events too much to walk away from them but I obviously need to refocus.

My first step was to ask myself why I love events so much? What drew me to them, even after I knew the long hours and hard work needed?

I believe that my purpose in life is to make someone’s day.

Events have always been a great vehicle for me to do this. A great party can put a light in someone’s eyes as they let the worries and cares of a crazy world fall back and enjoy the moment. That feeling of enjoyment can carry on for weeks and the memory of a great event can last forever.

This holds true with business events as well. I want to provide content that will allow the attendees to grow their business or career. Helping people to reach for the next level – or just giving them the knowledge to protect their business is what I love to do.

With this answer the next step was to find my new areas to focus on.

I need to focus on the impact I am making on 80% of the attendees at any event.

I will never make everyone happy – even if I had a candy store I couldn’t make everyone happy.

I need to focus on the outcome of the event, not the set up and tear down.

I need to focus on the details and let the routine happen.

I am grateful for the years that I have spent planning and running events. I have wonderful memories from so many events – and all of those great memories correlate with the outcome.

So, when you look up one day and realize you hate doing your passion I would suggest doing the following

Ask yourself what has gone wrong?

Ask yourself why that was your passion? What was your driving force?

Can you refocus or is it time to find a new passion?

I wish you the best of luck on all of your journeys and hope you never come to the point I did but wanted to share my story to help those who do reach that fork in the road.