How to find your passion in 3 steps

Watch the video, click here

Driving home from the city one night, I was giving my friend Jim a lift home. I always find car rides a good opportunity for conversation, and on this particular ride, the topic was career and personal development. At the climax of the discussion, there was an empty silence, so i jumped at the opportunity and asked the question: “so what is your ultimate goal?”. Jim was a working accountant, but also a very talented speaker and experienced Toastmaster, amongst other things. He replied that his goal was to be a professional speaker in the field of personal development. Having been in the audience of some of his speeches, I knew he was very capable of achieving such a goal.

Do you know people in your life in a similar situation? Making a living doing one thing, but with a passion for something else. What about you? Are you making a living doing one thing, but with a passion for something else? Or maybe you don’t know what your passion is.

In this episode, I will give you 3 steps you can use to identify your passion. At the end I will give you a final exercise to identify your next step, so that you can start living your passion today.

But let’s first get clear about what it means do something you’re passionate about. When you do something you’re passionate about, chances are you get so into it that you lose track of time and place. Nothing else matters except you and doing that thing that you love. These are the things you could become great at.

You could be passionate about different things at different parts of your life. In high school – I developed a passion for personal development and breakdancing. At uni I studied a science degree, but regardless, I developed a passion for business. After uni I developed a passion for video editing and public speaking.

Reflecting on these experiences, I’ve discovered 3 steps you can use to identify things you are passionate about. I will give you 3 questions. Ask yourself each question, and write down your answer.

1. Do you see someone succeeding and think “I want to be doing that” or “I want to be living like that”? If so, what are they doing? Whenever I would see an entrepreneur, running their own business and delivering their products to those who could benefit from them, I knew that was something I wanted to do, and perhaps being an entrepreneur was something I could be passionate about.

2. Do you cringe when you think someone is “doing it wrong” and you know ways to help them do it better? If so, what ways can you help them do it better? Now as an experienced public speaker, I would cringe whenever I would see speakers at work or on TV make an amateur mistake, because I knew that if they would fix 2 or 3 small things they’re presentations would improve dramatically. Now this was an area where I had to figure out a way to deliver that knowledge to those who could benefit from it. Again, this could be something I’m passionate about.

3. What excites you the most about life? This is a broad question but I assure you if you cycle back through your memories and identify those moments where you have felt the most excited, you will find something you are passionate about. As part of an English assessment in high school, we had to take part in a class play to be performed to the rest of the grade. This got me incredibly excited. Those brief moments where I acted on stage and said those few lines could possibly have been the most fun I had that year. In recent times, I get to feel this excitement when I give a speech, because to me, a speech is a type of performance art where I want to give my best every time.

Did you write down your answers to each question? Take the answers you get from these 3 questions, and see if they fit together into something you can start doing right now, today. Perhaps you’ve identified that you love music, in particular playing the guitar, and you would like to someday record a solo album, play a live gig, hold guitar workshops, organise music festivals, or manage other artists and help them commercialise their work. Whatever your answers are, identify where you are now, what you know, what you need to know, and figure out that next step that you can take now, to start living your passion today.

Related posts:

1. Conscious Growth Workshop – weights analogy
2. How to get the respect you deserve
3. The Puzzle