A question that most of us often ask ourselves: “How do I find my passion?” Usually, this question crops up when we stand at the crossroads of life after completing Higher Secondary Certificate and have to opt for higher education.
And somewhere in the midst of our career we also ask this question. Because we could be unhappy with what we’re doing or because of our social, financial, professional and other statuses.
However, the first question we should be asking ourselves is: “What is a passion?”
To find your passion, it’s important to understand what the word passion exactly means.
Definition of Passion
In simplest words, the word passion means strong interest in something. And that something could be a profession or hobby, cause of belief.
Passion is a powerful version of love. Therefore, for careers, the word passion means something you love and have an interest in doing.
If you follow your passions while looking for a career, you’re bound to succeed. The great ancient Chinese philosopher, Confucius said: “Choose a job that you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”
That’s because when you’re passionate about something, you hold something close to your heart, you devote all energies towards it.
Importance of Passion
When you dedicate all energies towards doing something, your life becomes purposeful. This translates as stress-free work and exponentially higher productivity.
This in turn leads to prosperity and overall, a happy lifestyle that brings excellent social, professional, financial and personal status.
And when we neglect following our passion, the consequences can be disastrous. We usually end up choosing a career or profession that we’re not interested in to begin with.
After spending considerable time, effort and money on studies, we take jobs that we find dull, dry, drab and mundane. We work because we have no and not because it gives us pleasure.
All these problems are avoidable. If you find your passion and act upon it. How to find your passion in life? I’ll provide some simple steps to follow.
How to find your Passion?
The world is full of successful as well as unsuccessful people. Usually, we measure success in terms of money and assets a person owns and their social status.
However, my definition of success is very different. Personally, I define success as being happy with what you do and content with what you have. And that happiness comes when you know your passion.
Step-1: Identify Your Innate Skills
Identifying your innate skills is the first step to find your passion in life. Innate skills, also known as inborn skills or intrinsic skills are those which you possess since childhood.
For example, a child may be an excellent singer without any training. Or could be adept at some sport without the assistance of a coach. How does one explain this talent?
These talents are what is largely known as innate or inborn skills. You were born with that specific talent. It is usually these innate skills that further develop as your passion.
Simply, because you don’t require any external training or motivation to do something. It comes automatically.
Trying to identify innate or inborn skills requires some effort. You’ll have to walk down memory lane and find what you would enjoy the most and found easy to do.
This fits into the above description of passion- love doing something. You can do this exercise at any time of your life.
Step-2: Find Where You’re Heading
Usually, you’ll start feeling uncomfortable when you begin studying for some course that doesn’t meet your passion. You might be studying at a very prestigious engineering college or medical colleges.
You would have put in extra efforts to get admission to these reputed institutes. But when you begin the course, you’ll start feeling dissatisfied.
This usually occurs when you’re not following your passion. And it’s a wake-up call asking you to discover your passion and follow it.
At this point, think about what career you would prefer and why. Ask yourself why you’re doing a course that you don’t like at all. Most likely, it’s prestige that sent you to do the course.
Or some fake belief that you would prosper in that field. But if you’re unhappy studying, you’ll be unhappier working. Therefore, it’s better to find something that attracts you and find a course that suits your passions rather than prolonging your journey on the wrong track.
Step-3: Find Where You Stand Now
Yes, that’s right. Find where you stand now in your life. Are you genuinely happy at the position you’re standing? Or do you have that nagging unhappiness lurking somewhere in the subconscious mind.
Do you believe you would be better off at some other job, though the pay could have been lesser? If this is indeed the case, it is high time to know your passion and start following it immediately.
If you sense that unhappiness, you’ve yet to discover your passion. At such a point, think of what you would have liked to do in your life. It could be anything that you’re passionate about.
The next thing is to find how you could earn money from your hobby or passion. Definitely, there’re numerous ways to do that. And third, find what it takes to invest and start own venture that closely matches your passion and current profession.
Doing so can help you start an excellent side business and earn extra income. Since you already hold a job, regular income wouldn’t be a problem. However, you can identify a passion to use for setting up a home-based business or even consultancy.
Wrap Up
Finding your passion can prove rather difficult as we progress along with our career, despite being unhappy. Education and financial needs usually dim that passion which we have.
One of the ways to rekindle passion is by finding your childhood hobby or what you would enjoy in those formative years. That would lead to finding your innate passions and skills.
The thumb rule is that never allow your passion to go waste. If possible, you can do a complete career U-turn even at a later stage in life.
