T.S. ELIOT said “It is obvious that we can no more explain a passion to a person who has never experienced it than we can explain light to the blind.” This is really common, ask someone about passion, they be in their 20s, and they haven’t found their passion as of yet.
Passion is the zeal and vigour that keeps us going, that keeps us packed with significance, joy, and enthusiasm. Passion is a strong force in achieving anything you put your wit to, and in undergoing work and life the brimful level possible.
You’ll be a happy person if you discover your passion and if you don’t you will be an empty vessel craving for love for your work.
To find your passion and following it is in itself a difficult thing to achieve, although everyone is expected to do it.
As Harriet Tubman points out “Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”
1. Cultivate your passion
There’s nothing like following your passion it can be only creating your passion. How do you absorb passion into your life? You cannot discover passion, it is generated. ‘Following your passion’ indicate the truth that you have uncovered the passion already and took up a job in it whereas ‘Cultivating passion’ indicates that you toil towards establishing passion for your job. This may be a lengthy operation but it profits you in a better way. In this procedure you will know your abilities and values. You will learn to work towards a lifestyle which echoes you.
2. Passion is not restricted to a career route
Passion can be found in numerous career routes but there are other factors involved which enable people to love their work. It is the respect they get, their designation, their freedom, creativity, mastery, recognition and use of abilities. Research shows that the traits that lead people to love their work are general, and can be found in many different career paths.
You should focus on a career which not only gives value to the world but interests you as well. You are likely to become more passionate in your career if you go to its roots and dissolve in it completely.
3. You need to cease brainstorming!
There is no need to brainstorm your mind. Majority of people think this as a way to find their passion, however, this route is mostly flawed. Thinking is not the exercise for finding your passion and the only way to find it is to act.
4. You need to experiment enough to figure out your passion
You can take up an internship to get your feet wet, or take up an assignment which may be not matching your comfort area. You need to experiment to find your passion. Through real engrossment only you can identify what kind of things elates you and makes you feel energetic. This way you will figure out what you really are into, and then you can channel it in a productive manner, evaluating your heart’s desires and work in that route.
5. Following your passion cannot give a surety of stability
There can be times when you do a work you love, say making pizza, and your cousins advise you to open a pizza shop. You are exhausted making 100 pizzas every day, and dealing with customers and their different needs and complaints. Your business and the problems involved might make you abhor your job, and you would probably hate the career you have made with so many efforts, and so much love.
You should think before you commit
You will have a passion to change the way you work. Finding solutions and taking up challenges will be part of them. Before you commit to following your passion, it’s necessary that you understand if your everyday work will show you a different reality or continue in the same channel of love.
However, you need to create what you want to do. When you get your idea or passion you should do it. You dont need to fear failure. Because you experience lots of things in this process rather than in a career that you hate.
6. Passion is a lifestyle complication
You need to chalk out what type of life you want to live. Where do you want to put up? And how much do you want to earn? And which route you want to opt for? Career decision may not always be about choosing the things you love, but about what kind of life you want to set up for yourself.
Rather than starting with a passion, you can depend on your instincts about the lifestyle you want to lead.
You need to identify the career options which would make you realize the goals you want to pursue in your life. You do not have to ignore your passions, but just need to put them in the right context.
7. Your passions can be swapped
Life changes, and sometimes passions shift too. There are really less people who are lucky enough to convert their passions into lifetime work and career. In fact, very less people follow their passions for a life span be it their favourite pastimes, careers and even bonds.
Choosing the shade
There are some people who just can’t focus and love one thing. They have multiple dimensions in their life. But there is nothing which cease you from learning another field after you achieve forte in one. But the question here comes do you need to keep them separate or merge them. Do you need everything under one umbrella or under different ones? This you will have to decide, whether you want a black or white thing or a grey would do!
Extra
Try this exercise to find your passion
First, find a peaceful place, meditate and listen to your inner voice.
Second, make a worksheet, and tick the options which give you joy in life.
Third, from those checked options, make your top ten list of those options which gives you enthusiasm and which you love doing.
Fourth, make sure the voices are your own and not what others want you to do. Reduce your options to top 5, making it a feeling exercise rather than a thinking one.
