Tools to Find Your Passion in Life

FIND YOUR PASSION

Psychological well-being, broadly defined as happiness, life satisfaction, and self-growth, represents one of the most important aspects of efficient psychological functioning. Indeed, much research reveals that happy people experience a number of benefits ranging from physical health to better relationships to high-level performance.

In contemporary Western culture the ideal of living authentically, of being "true to yourself," is ubiquitous. Authenticity is "taken for granted" as an absolute value in a multitude of areas, from music, to travel to identity. A core component of authentic selfhood is to find an occupation that is a "passion:" work that is "really you."For many sociologists, most famously Max Weber, finding something that gives life purpose is the great challenge for individuals in the modern West. In a disenchanted society, individuals may struggle to work out what they should do with their lives. For Weber the answer is to find your calling.

Passions are necessary to reach the highest levels of achievement

Harmonious passion results from an autonomous internalization of the activity representation into the person's identity. An autonomous internalization occurs when individuals have freely accepted the activity as important for them without any or little contingencies attached to it. This type of internalization emanates from the intrinsic and integrative tendencies of the self. It produces a motivational force to engage in the activity willingly and engenders a sense of volition and personal endorsement about pursuing the activity. When harmonious passion is at play, individuals do not experience an uncontrollable urge to engage in the passionate activity, but rather freely choose to do so. With this type of passion, the activity occupies a significant but not overpowering space in the person's identity and is in harmony with other aspects of the person's life. In other words, with harmonious passion the authentic integrating self is at play allowing the person to fully partake in the passionate activity with a flexibility and a mindful open manner that is conducive to positive experiences.

What is the role of harmonious passion in facilitating such sustained positive affectivity?

Being passionate toward a given activity will lead the person to engage in the activity frequently, often over several years and sometimes a lifetime. Harmonious passion for a given activity will generally lead to the experience of positive emotions during activity engagement. Such emotions, in turn, will foster increases in psychological well-being. Thus, over time, harmonious passion is expected to facilitate sustainable increases in psychological well-being and prevent against ill-being.

When you're trying to find your passion, it's crucial that you become intimately familiar with yourself.

Tools to find your passion in life

You want to learn:

• What motivates you?
• What inspires you?
• What excites you?
• What engages you?
• What scares you and holds you back?
• What do you do well naturally?
• What do you need to improve?
• What do you pretend to like but really don't?

As you become more familiar with yourself beyond the roles you play, you're able to separate the wheat from the chaff. You can determine your priorities for the limited time you have in a day, a year, and a lifetime.

The goal is to maximize your time doing more of what you love (your passion or passions) and less of what you don't love.

As you read each question below, speak each question out loud, as though you are your own coach. Then closes your eyes and allow the answers to rise to the surface of your consciousness.

• Write down your thoughts as quickly as possible
• Don't stop with the first few answers you come up with. After every answer you write down, ask yourself, "Is there more?" Keep asking this until you have nothing left to add.
• Try not to allow those beliefs and fears to get in the way of your authentic, honest answers.
• Be real with yourself because you can't find your passion if you're using a broken compass to guide the way.

Begin with a mindset of positive expectation and curiosity to get the most from these questions.

Self-coaching questions:

1. What is working well for you in your current life and career - what do you find fulfilling, meaningful, enjoyable, and important?

2. What isn't working well for you in your current life and career - what drains you, makes you stressed and anxious, or wastes your time?

3. If you were financially secure and didn't need a pay check, how would you spend your time?

4. What are some childhood dreams or interests you were never able to fully explore but still find intriguing?

5. If you could be remembered for three things after you die, what would they be?

6. Who is someone in your life or in history whose life and work inspires and excites you? Why?

7. What skills do you possess that you really enjoy and love to do?

8. What skills do you possess that you dislike but feel you must do anyway?

9. What specific activities have you done in a past or current job that you really enjoy and find engaging?

10. How much of your time during an average week is spent doing things you dislike or that you feel waste your time?

11. What are your top 5 most deeply held core values?

12. How does your life and work currently support or reflect those values?

13. Which of your top values are you ignoring or not giving enough attention?

14. How are you living outside of your integrity?

15. What do you fear most when it comes to finding your passion?

16. What limiting beliefs do you hold about yourself and your ability to succeed at making your passion part of your life?

17. How have your fears and limiting beliefs held you back from finding or pursuing your passion in the past?

18. Are there any people in your life preventing you from pursuing your passion? Who are they and how are they holding you back?

19. What could you do to communicate with this person (people) to enlist their support or get them to step out of your way?

20. Are you willing to disengage entirely from people undermining your passion pursuit? If not, why?

21. What interests or hobbies have you had in the past few years that intrigue you and might hold the potential for a life passion?

22. Are you willing to spend time engaging with these interests to learn more - by volunteering, part-time work, interning, finding a mentor, etc.?

23. If you think you know what your passion might be, what specific work have you done to learn more about it and really experience it? What are you willing to do?

24. What is the very worst thing that could happen if you decided to pursue your passion? Could you live with that?

25. What would your ideal day look like? Describe it in detail from morning until bedtime.

26. What is something (or several things) you'd really like to achieve before you die?

27. If you woke up nearly every day feeling content, fulfilled, and happy about your life and work, how would that impact you physically, mentally, emotionally, in your relationships, and in your self-confidence?

28. How has living a less-than-passionate life impacted you? Give specific examples.

29. What would make you feel proud of yourself?

30. If you could start fresh all over again with your life and career, what would you do differently?

As you work through these questions, leave space after your answers so you can go back and revise or add to them later on.

You'll find these questions provoke deep levels of awareness over time, and certain answers might arise days or even weeks after you first explore the question.

It is amazing how simply acknowledging the truth of who you are and what you want will motivate and inspire you toward creative ideas and forward moving action toward finding your passion.

Crossing the dessert

Walk ahead, because if you look back, you will go back.

Understanding the truth about what you want for your life and how you might be holding yourself back is just the first step. But knowledge without action is useless. Building something that matters is a marathon, not a sprint. Worthwhile things take time. Doing the work to transform your dreams into reality is like walking across the earth. It can be that hard, it can take that long. If you walk from the North Pole to the South Pole, at one point you will go through the dessert. It is part of the journey.

If you want to find your passion, you need to take action on what you've learned.

Pay attention to what you enjoy.

Go back and look at the answers you gave related to what inspires you and engages you, both now and in the past. Look for patterns and related activities, job responsibilities, and hobbies that have historically been positive for you.

Never contradict your core values.

This is hugely important and bears repeating. Know what your life principles are and what you value most. Then don't make any big decisions or life changes that contradict those values.

Keep in mind the brevity of life.

Prioritize your values, and you can't go wrong.

"Life ends for most people, who stiffen in the attitudes they adopt to make themselves suitable for the jobs and lives that other people have laid out for them" as V.S. Naipul wrote.

In 1960s, Paolo, a troubled teenager from Brazil, told his parents that he wanted to become a writer. However, his parents opposed the idea and committed him to a mental institution. He escaped from the sanatorium, and found refuge in drugs, sex and the hippie lifestyle of the time. He gave up his dreams as a writer, and undertook shadow careers as a journalist or writing lyrics to make a living.

He picked up the pen again when he was 35, but his first book failed. Five years later, he published another novel through a small Brazilian publisher. They only printed 900 copies, and they stopped because it was not selling. So Paolo knocked on doors and asked other to publish the book again, even though it had flopped before. Another company bought the rights and published it six years later under the name: The Alchemist.

Paolo Coelho's novel took off and became one of the best-selling books of all times, translated into 80 languages, and even holding the Guinness World Record for the 'most translated book by a living author'. His journey through the desert was difficult, and it took more than thirty years.

How was he able to keep going? As Paolo explained to Oprah Winfrey, 'There is a sentence in the book that says: When you want something, the whole Universe conspires to help you -I wrote this. I have to live by these words"

Are you willing to cross the desert? Because in the end only the traveller gets to tell the story. The rest have no stories. The crowd remains wondering, "WHAT IF?"

• You cannot talk about the grit. You have to embody it.
• You cannot talk about the faith. You have to live it.
• You cannot talk about the desert. You have to cross it.

When you transform your idea into reality, when the seed becomes the tree in blossom, when you walk out of the desert and into light, you forget all the days, the weeks, the months, and the years of endless torment, frustrations, and stress. You forget all the rejections you got along the way. Your life is the fruit of what you do. Your persistent actions are the bridge between mind and matter, between inner and outer.

Celebrate every action you take and try not to take it all too seriously. Life is meant to be savoured, not suffered. Fully live and enjoy every part of your life. Do what you've been called to do. Do it with grit, do it with courage, do it with boldness and faith, and do it for the rest of your life.

Follow your dreams. 🌟

Love and light,

Sophie and Ellie xx

Sources:

Vallerand, R.J. Psych Well-Being (2012) 2: 1. https://doi.org/10.1186/2211-1522-2-1https://liveboldandbloom.com/02/passion-in-life/questions-to-find-life-passionhttps://www.verywellmind.com/tips-for-finding-your-purpose-in-life-4164689

https://www.livinginwellbeing.org/find-your-passion-and-fulfill-your-destiny/

Dr. D.B. (2018) The Pursuit of Dreams: Claim your Power, Follow your Heart and Fulfil your Destiny.

Vincent, S.(2012) Finding Your Purpose in Life: A Simple Guide to Discovering Who You Are, Your Passion and Life Purpose