Harden Elkington
You’ve undoubtedly been advised to “follow your passion,” but it might be difficult if you don’t even know what yours is. We’ve all had difficulty with this at some point in our lives.
Don’t worry! While you may not yet be able to identify your passion, it’s entirely doable to discover it.
Instead of hoping and waiting for inspiration to hit, we can take specific actions that will help us identify our passion and purposes.
We can stop waiting for a major life-changing event to reveal our purposes and start having fun identifying them right now!
In the process of doing research for my upcoming book, I spoke with ten people who had discovered their passions and purposes.
Here are seven inspiring actions that helped them find their true calling in life. I’m sure at least one will resonate with you, or perhaps all seven!
How to find your passion
Investigate Your Desires
What’s the first thing to do when trying to discover your passion? Some people say you should ask yourself if it makes you happy, but happiness is too high and too ephemeral a standard for this particular task.
Instead, we can follow the lead of New Zealand researcher Alan Law and ask ourselves if our desires give us pleasure.
Follow Your Heart
An introspective investigation is one way to uncover your passions, but there’s another equally rich source: your heart.
The heart has its reasons that the mind knows not of, as French mathematician Blaise Pascal famously pointed out. Taking a page from Pascal’s book, we can explore our hearts to discover our passions and purposes.
Get Out There and Live It!
If you want to know your passion or purpose, then simply go do it! Don’t wait for inspiration. Just take action.
There’s no telling what might happen; the first step that you take may be exactly right, or it may lead to something even better than your original plan!
Stay Curious
After you’ve taken action for a while and become skilled at what you do, it can be easy to lose your sense of curiosity. This is a mistake.
If you want to discover your passion and purpose, then don’t stop being inquisitive about the world. Why keep doing what you’re doing if it’s no longer fun?
Ask Your Friends for Their Opinions
Friends can be great sources of information that will help you find your true calling in life. Ask them about their passions and purposes.
You might be surprised at how much they tell you! They might even have some great resources that could help you find your passion, too.
Look to Your Childhood
Many people found their passions during childhood, but something happened later in life that caused them to lose track of their desires and repress their interests.
If you want to discover your passion, then take a second look at the experiences that occupied your time in youth and try to imagine what that childhood activity would be like if it were still enjoyable for you.
Reflect on Your Accomplishments
In addition to asking yourself about what activities provide intrinsic rewards, you can ask yourself which things you’ve accomplished have given you the most satisfaction.
What have been your proudest achievements?
Have any of them involved activities that could be a part of your future calling in life?
These are just a few examples, but they show that there are many different ways to discover our passions and purposes. The question isn’t which approach is the “correct” one, but rather which methods work best for you.
You can build upon these ideas or come up with entirely new ones that suit your needs. This isn’t a puzzle that has just one solution; it’s an open-ended process of exploring and learning about yourself.
The key is to have fun with it!
What to do when you’re struggling to find your passion?
If you think you’ve tried everything and still haven’t discovered your passion, then it might be time to put some distance between yourself and the things that frustrate you.
A change of scenery can bring new clarity to what you want in life.
A good way to do this is to take a break from the part of the world that seems to hold so much unhappiness for you. Maybe it’s time to travel, go on an extended vacation or retreat, spend some time in nature, or even seek out a new job or change your residence.
No matter what method you try, remember to stay open-minded and keep taking positive steps forward!
Everyone has something that they’re passionate about, whether it’s a career they’re pursuing or an activity that gives them joy.
Sometimes this passion is visible to the public on social media channels, but other times it takes place behind closed doors.
Whether you know someone on a personal level or not, if their profile looks interesting on social media, then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t follow them to see what they have to say about their passions and purposes in life!
It’s never too late or too early to find your passion.
Sometimes a simple change of perspective is all you need to get started. Again, don’t wait for inspiration to strike you out of the blue – just go do it! It doesn’t matter if you lack the skills or resources at first.
Passion doesn’t happen overnight. It might take some trial and error, but it’s always worth it in the end.
- Related post: Choosing Pain May Be a Key to a Meaningful Life
- Related post: How to Stop Being Absent minded and be more attentive
Is it possible to not have a passion?
Yes! If you want to, then it’s your prerogative.
You shouldn’t force yourself to follow a passion if it doesn’t make you happy. Sometimes life’s other purposes are more important than what you enjoy doing in your free time.
But rather than seeing this circumstance as something negative, try to look at it from a different perspective. Maybe you don’t have a passion, but what can you do that helps other people? That’s just as good.
If you’re primarily focused on helping others then that creates meaning in your life that might be even more fulfilling than just following your own desires all the time.
Your purpose doesn’t have to be “I want to change the world” or “I want to make the most money ever.” It can be as simple as “I want to help my family and friends whenever they need me.”
No matter what that purpose is, just remember that it’s not where you’re going that makes life worthwhile – it’s the road you take to get there.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither are passions. It takes time to find what you enjoy doing, but it will be worth it if you don’t just give up on the first obstacle that appears.
The moment that you start trying new things is the moment that your life starts to change for the better. You’ll never know unless you try.
Final thought
When you’re passionate about something, it’s easy to feel excited and inspired.
You can’t wait for the day to start because you know that every day is going to be amazing!
But if you’ve been struggling with finding your passion in life, then maybe it’s time to stop putting so much pressure on yourself. Take a step back and relax.
It’s going to be alright. Your passion is on its way, and if it isn’t showing up right now, then there might be a good reason for that.
Just remember that you don’t have to do anything right away. If you keep living your life in an enjoyable way while still looking for what you really want to do in the future, then you’ll never feel like you’re wasting time.
You can always go back and try again if something doesn’t work out the first time. Just remember that life isn’t over because your plans didn’t end up happening. You’ve still got a lot to give to the world, so don’t stop believing in yourself!
