How to find your passion

A lot of women freeze when
they speak about the topic passion.

They immediately start thinking about their purpose, why they are here on earth, what they came here to do, their mission and they make it so big and scary that they worry that they don’t have a passion, and that they will never be able to find it.

This worries them so much and therefore they freeze and feel stuck. Your passion doesn’t need to be so big. You passion can be something that you just really enjoy doing, something that makes you happy.

When you do something that you’re passionate about you forget about the time, you are in the moment and in flow.

Just remember that your time on earth is just temporary. Try make it your goal to make yourself happy, to be fulfilled, to enjoy life, to enjoy your job and to have fun.

It doesn’t all need to be so serious.

Also, the search for who you are, what you want and what you’re passionate about can be fun, its allowed to be fun.

Allow yourself to have fun!

Funny thing is that there are some real golden nuggets in your daily activities that you probably didn’t even realize.

First of all, I want you to think about what are your values?

My values for example are freedom, adventure, humour, and personal development.
By having my own business, I experience freedom and personal development, because I’m growing and learning every day through running a business.

I’m free because I can work whenever I want from wherever I want.
By travelling I experience adventure, by spending time with friends and family I experience humour, fun and feeling connected.

If I would be working in an office for a boss, I would not be living all my values, I would not be able to travel like I do now and I would not be able to experience the freedom that I have now.

You need to figure out what your values are and if you are currently living according to your values or whether there’s a gap.

Then make a list of all the books you read, all the documentaries you watch, the podcasts you listen to, all the movies you watch, the magazines you read.

Then ask yourself the question, are there any common themes or topics?

Think about your childhood, what did you really enjoy doing?

Do you have a hobby or something you loved doing as a child, but never considered it as a possibility for a job?

How do you spend your free time, what do you do? What topics do you like talking about with others?

Think about the discussions you had lately, what were they about? What do you stand for? What do you believe in?

Start to examine the details. I want you to dig in deeper. Say you enjoy volunteering and teaching school children English. Ask yourself why is this activity making me happy?

Answers might include:

Deeply exploring these factors may help you identify exactly what motivates you. When you understand what inspires you, you may find more specific job opportunities that involve your interests. Now write down on a piece of paper all the possibilities. How crazy they may seem, write it down.

I want you to dream really BIG.

If you had all the time and money in the world and anything is possible then what would you do?

If you find it difficult to come up with ideas then go for a walk in nature, take a long shower or bath, do yoga or meditate, just try to get out of your head and into your body

Now go for a walk around the house and look at everything that you see. Look on your computer, or on your bookshelf for inspiration, and write down whatever comes to mind. They could be clues to the things you are passionate about.

Think about your role models, who do you look up to and why? What do they do? Who are you envious of, in who’s shoes would you really want to be? Whose life would you trade with? And why? What is it about what they do or have that inspires you so much?

Look for highlights in your day and write them down, what did you really enjoy doing today and why? Do this for a couple of weeks and after a while you will start seeing similar patterns.

Make a list of all the activities you enjoy about your current job and your previous jobs; do you recognize any common themes?

Also think about how you want to be remembered. What qualities or achievements do you want to be remembered for most?

I also love doing the rocking chair exercise with my clients. If you are old one day, how do you want to look back at your life? What do you want to have had accomplished?

Then start connecting the dots…

Look for connections between your strengths, interests and values. See if you can make these various interests and values into a career. For example, if you like animals and helping others, consider positions such as a veterinarian, zookeeper or dog groomer.

There are a few things that could be holding you back from finding your passion.

These could be negative thoughts such as:

Work is not supposed to be fun, and I should be happy I have a job in the first place.
I’ll never be able to achieve that anyway.
I’m too old to change my career around.
It’s going to be too hard, so what’s the point of trying.
I cannot go back to studying now.

It’s important to change your mindset to a more positive one. Otherwise you’re not even going to bother finding your passion because you think it’s not possible anyway.

A steady job, regular income, and social recognition all contribute to a temptation to ‘play it safe.’ Many people fall into a job, career, or profession by accident. But it doesn’t need to be this way. You can also be in the driver’s seat of your life and proactively choose what you want to do career wise. Maybe you want to start your own company, maybe you want to take your career in a completely different direction. This will require you to leave your comfort zone.

‘Work’ will always account for a huge proportion of our lives, and unless we continuously make conscious choices, we are leaving our destiny to chance. Think about the choices you made in your twenties, they typically tend to map out future and then we decide to stay in a certain field that we studied, or we stay in the same jobs as our previous jobs because we have the working experience in the certain field, we earn a certain salary and it gives us a certain job security.

Surprisingly, what may appear at the time to be a setback, such as a challenge at work or even losing your job, can sometimes be a gift, an opportunity to choose a different path. It’s at this point in our lives that we may start to have ‘what if’ moments. But how much better would it be if you were ahead of this and not wait till you lose your job but instead you proactively plan your transition? This is the time to be very conscious and aware, to listen to your inner voice, watch your thoughts, and decide whether you are still happy in your job.

If not, then do something about it!

Once you have an idea of what you are passionate about, you need to get out of your comfort zone and take action. No, you don’t need to quite your job immediately. You can for example first do you passion as a side hustle to see whether you really are passionate about this certain thing.

Many times, the answer to how to discover your passion is right in front of you, but you’re refusing to see it. Open your eyes and believe that life can be fun. You need to work on your mindset, eliminate excuses and accept nothing less than a life filled with joy. This may sound impossible at first, but once you commit to feeling the fear and doing it anyway and working on your mindset and working with your self-doubt and limiting beliefs you will become more confident and this is the first step to finding your passion.