Finding Your Passion

Have you found your passion? Do you leap out of bed in the mornings so turned on by something that sleeping-in seems just such a waste of time? Are you so motivated and inspired by something in life that the very thought of it gives you ‘goose bumps of the mind’?

What will you put up with discomfort for? What will you willingly expend huge amounts of time, energy, money and effort on… just because it gives you massive amounts of pleasure?

For a person who lives their passion ‘work’ doesn’t exist; ‘effort’ doesn’t exist. Everything they do is a unique expression of their true self.

And if you’ve found your passion, great! But do you get enough of it? Is it just one activity? Does it frustrate you because you can’t get enough of it? What if you could actually get paid to live it? Wouldn’t that be good?

Most people go through life with a sense that they’re not completely fulfilled. They are never completely satisfied; they are in a constant state of mild frustration and talk about life as being a “drag” or a “battle”. They feel that there “must be something more to life” but never quite find it. Why is that?

The thing with our passions is that people think they are an activity – a hobby or a particular way of living. That’s fine, but what happens when you can’t do that activity or something interrupts that lifestyle? You feel dejected, resigned to ‘the grind of life’. Upset and frustration set in… or even anger or resentment. Sound familiar? Not much fun is it? Well, that’s because you’ve mistaken the activity for your real passion.

‘Challenge’, ‘engagement’, enjoyment’, ‘pleasure’, ‘fulfilment’ etc. are the real passions! These are the states or feelings you get from the activity or hobby. Ask anyone who has a hobby or activity they get lost in; “why do you do that”? and you’ll hear, “because it makes me feel… X” or “because it gives me a sense of… Y”. You’ll hear they’re talking about an internal reward – and that is the real passion; they’re ‘hooked on a feeling’. When you realise that the activity itself isn’t actually the passion, you can take that sense of passion and spread it around your life even more. You can connect the feeling – the real passion – to almost every aspect of life… imagine that!

So passions are actually High Positive Values – unconscious, multi-layered, unique combinations of internal states. It’s great when, by chance, we find or grow into an activity that gives us these passionate states of reward, but the activity itself is just an activity.

Here’s an example; if someone says “I love freshwater fishing, it’s my absolute passion”. And I ask, “Why? Tell me more about that”. After some mental searching they might say something like “It’s just so peaceful. It’s a break from responsibility; I’ve always loved it, my Dad used to take me fishing. It reminds me of the carefree days of being a kid and having fun like we did on family holidays.” From this description we can find multi-layered states of high personal value;  ‘family’, ‘togetherness’; ‘child-like carefreeness’; ‘fraternal care’; ‘nostalgia’ (positive memories); ‘love’; all wrapped up in ‘inner-peace’. Wow, with all these positive states attached to it, is it any surprise that the simple activity of freshwater fishing is so compelling for them?

So if you’ve found your passion, identify the states behind it – and spread them to other areas of life. Or if you’ve not found an activity that really grabs you yet, identify the unique sets of states and feelings that would really get you going; access them and connect them to activities in your life or invent activities through which you can express them.

So how exactly do you do that? It’s about finding and expressing your subconscious values – I take you through exactly how to tap into your subconscious values in my course How To Be Mentally Tough. And despite it being my first course published back in 2017, my course Personal Mastery: The Psychology Of Happiness & Fulfilment still holds timeless truths. Or get crystal clear on your unique values through coaching and unlock your inner genius and passions.

Optimum Mind ltd provides Performance, Generative and Transformational Meta-Coaching for individuals and work teams as well as group trainings to fill your needs. Contact me now to find out more and bring more passion into your life.