We live in a generation where everyone preaches about finding your passion and earning a livelihood from the things you love doing. It’s true that when you love what you do, you never have to work a day in your life. While the idea of doing what you love is enticing but not many, have the clarity of what they like to do. If you’re someone who’s been struggling to find their passion, you’ve come to the right place. Through this post, we aim to help you find and develop your passion so that whenever you wake up in the morning, you’re motivated to do the work you love and, at the same time, earn your daily bread.
“Make your passion become your income” is becoming a thing lately. However, what if you don’t know what your passion is?
According to a study, 80% of first-year college students in the United States end up changing their majors. Some studies show that students tend to change their majors multiple times throughout their college career, hoping to find what they love.
The reason for that is that many people don’t know what it is they want to do in life or what it is they really passionate about. Not everybody is lucky enough to have their passion for their future career laid out in front of them. Some people are not even introduced to their passion until much later on in life.
What Is Passion?
Passion is an intense willingness to do things that imbibes you with feelings of extreme fulfillment within yourself. It pushes you to strive for better things in life and become the best version of yourself.
We all have some dreams that we want to fulfill, and passion pushes us through a challenging time to make those dreams become a reality. Because when we are passionate, we don’t care about the sacrifices that come along to turn our dreams into fruition.
2 Types of Passion
- Harmonious passion – originates in autonomous activities that eventually lead people to engage in the activity they love.
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Obsessive passion – originates from controlled activities that can lead one to experience an uncontrollable urge to engage in the activity.
Why Do You Need To Find Your Passion?
If you ever thought that making loads of money will make you happy and fulfilled, then you’re wrong. Passion is what makes living life worthwhile, also backed by studies. If you’re not passionate about at least one thing in your life, you won’t ever be content from within.
In this busy life, we all need a passion that we can rely on whenever life becomes difficult. It could be as simple as finding joy in experimenting with new recipes, painting, dancing, reading, writing, etc.
Passion gives you a reason to live life to its fullest and develop your mindset with a positive outlook towards everything.
Top 10 Powerful Steps To Discovering Your Passion
Are there practical ways to find true passion in life?
The answer is yes.
But there’s a twist in the mindset you need to know. Instead of discovering a passion, focus on actively developing a passion. Research also confirms this!
So, if you haven’t discovered your passion yet, here are ten powerful steps to develop a passion.
1. SWOT Analysis
The first step to find passion will require you to evaluate yourself, which involves finding your strengths and weaknesses. Learn what you’re good and passionate about and the growth opportunities.
An effective way to do that is to try the SWOT analysis.
- Strength: Strength stands for the areas in which you have an advantage over others. These are areas where you can be an expert and stand out. In other words, strengths are good qualities or factors that help you achieve your goals and objectives.
- Weaknesses: Weaknesses stand for the areas others have an advantage over you and the qualities you might need to improve.
- Opportunities: Opportunities are favorable situations that you can leverage to achieve your goals. Good opportunities offer help to achieve your goals with the strengths you have.
- Threat: Threat stands for the obstacles that might hold you back from achieving your goals.
Doing the SWOT analysis will help you evaluate the areas you need to work on and take the necessary actions to deal with the possible hurdles in finding your passion.
2. List Out The Things You’re Good At
When you have completed your SWOT analysis and found what skills you’re good at, you can easily monetize and earn a living out of your skills that you’re most passionate about.
Gather a pen and paper and list all the skills you’re good at. It could be cooking, knitting, writing, photography, etc.
- What assets do you have – such as knowledge, education, network, skills, and reputation?
- What competitive advantages do you have over your peers?
- Do you have good emotional intelligence?
- Are you good at social media?
After having a clear idea of your talents, find ways to monetize them. It’s not difficult to start a business out of your abilities online and make money at the comfort of your home.
For example, if you’re good at cooking, you can start a food blog or a YouTube channel to show your cooking skills to the world.
3. Reflect On Your Life
When looking for your passion, you may want to reflect on your life first profoundly. It’s okay if you don’t know what your real purpose is. Evaluating your life allows you to see from a clear perspective and take actions accordingly.
Maybe some areas in your life make you feel defeated. Take some time out of your day today and list all these areas in a notebook.
- Family
- Career
- Relationship
- Health
- Finance
- Personal Growth
Once you’re done writing these categories, rate them on a scale of one to ten, that how happy and content you’re with each group.
For the things you like the most, write out how you can continue working on them. And for the things that you least like, find out ways to improve those areas.
For example, you may not be happy with your health. For that, list out the things you can do to lead a healthy life. It could be as small as a habit of drinking water regularly.
4. Ask The Right Questions
Asking the right questions enables you to dive deep into what your passion is. So you have to be honest while answering these questions.
Take out your journal and set aside time so that you can collect your honest thoughts about each question.
Here we have listed ten questions for you to discover your passion.
Questions To Ask To Discover Your Passion
- If you don’t want to work for money, what would you do instead?
- What are the three things you want to be remembered for after dying?
- As a child, what were your interests, or what made you happy?
- What are the things that others compliment you for?
- In the last six months, what did I love doing the most?
- Three things that make you forget everything?
- What does your dream job look like?
5. Try New Things
Like I said before, much time, we aren’t even aware of the things that we are passionate about until later in life. So go out and try something you’ve never done before because you might fall in love with it.
Doing experiments with new things opens doors for you to see if other things give you the thrill. Maybe there’s a list of things you have always wanted to try but couldn’t.
If not all of that, try at least one thing at a time and see what works the best for you. Don’t put yourself in a box and start experimenting.
6. Find Out What The World Needs
There are ample opportunities in the world, and all you need is a solution to a problem that the world is facing. That’s the way to develop a passion.
Put your thinking hat on and figure out the things everyone struggles with these days. Once you find the problem, think about how you can solve it. That’s how entrepreneurs are born. They believe in their ideas and are passionate about them.
7. Develop New Skills
Everyone has some skill that they monetize. Doing proper research about the market will give you an insight if there’s a demand for the skills you’re good at.
However, if there’s a skill that you have always wanted to try, you can learn it from someone who’s already an expert.
For example, find a mentor about the skills you want to be an expert at and work on them diligently. A good mentor will guide you to discover and develop your passion easier.
8. Meditate And Pay Attention
None of the steps will do you any good if you have no sense of self-awareness. Pay attention to how you feel when doing new things and reflecting on old things.
Also, if you lack self-awareness, meditation can help you gain self-awareness. Self-awareness is the starting point to change your life and bring a positive impact.
Take your time and meditate on the things you’ve written down and the things you’ve reflected on so far. Clear your mind and try not to let yourself stress about it. Meditation is an excellent way to find clarity.
9. Trust Yourself
How will you develop passion if you don’t trust yourself?
If you feel like you know what you’re passionate about, believe it, and pursue it. It doesn’t matter what everyone else says and if it takes time to become successful.
What matter is that whatever you pursue, it should excite you on the inside and motivate you to want to put in that work. Pursuing our passions can be scary, but have faith in your talent. Go with your gut and believe you can do it.
10. Hustle And Take Action
Now is the time to take action. If you don’t take action, you won’t ever be able to turn your dreams into reality. Put your hustle mode on and set your foot forward to take actionable steps.
Here are a few tips on how you can take action.
- Determine your goals and evaluate them.
- Breakdown your goals into smaller chunks.
- Assign weekly tasks to achieve these goals.
- Have a proper daily schedule of at least 30 minutes to work on your skills.
- Reflect on your goals every week.
A Word From AlignThoughts,
Discovering your passion is a simple process, but it is not easy. It takes time, and sometimes it can be frustrating when you have no idea what you want to do in life. In testing times, you have to be patient. If you don’t know your passion, keep pushing towards it, and you’ll find it.
Do you know what your passions are? Are you pursuing them? What steps did you take to develop your passion? Let us know in the comments below!
Key Takeaways On How To Find Passion
- Passion is about doing what you love and having a sense of purpose that ignites your heart with love and fulfillment.
- Did you know 80% of first-year college students in the United States end up changing their majors because they lack clarity about their passion and career aspirations?
- The first step to discover passion is to reflect on your life to get a clear perspective about where you want your life to take direction.
- For example, you may want to improve your finances, career, relationship, family, or friends.
- Ask the right questions as they help you dig deep into your passion. Take out a journal and write your honest thoughts about each question.
- Next would be to list out the things you’re naturally good at. After gathering the ideas, find ways to how to monetize your talents.
- Please do not refrain from trying new things as they open doors of possibilities that may excite you.
- Go out and find out what the world needs to solve a specific problem.
- If you want to find passion, you’ll need to develop your skills. Research about the market demands and try your hands on different skillsets accordingly.
- Meditate and pay attention to your thoughts because without self-awareness, you’ll never be able to find your real purpose.
- Trust yourself because discovering your passion may take time. If you feel like you know your passion, believe it, and pursue it.
- Lastly, hustle and don’t forget to take consistent action toward turning your passion into a reality.
FAQs on Finding Passion
What is passion?
Passion is doing what you love and about giving meaning to your life. It is about living your life with a sense of contentment and a real purpose.
Is passion overrated?
Passion may, indeed, be overrated. However, it is something that one must be committed to. Consider it as a habit. If you don’t stick to your good habits, you falter in life.
Similarly, you need to continuously work on your passion for bringing a positive change in your life.
Can you be successful without finding your passion?
The definition of success is subjective. You can have a successful career which you may not be passionate about. The purpose of passion is beyond monetary success. However, without passion, you may not feel completely fulfilled.
Developing passion around the things you’re good at, or cultivating new skills, and keeping consistency can, in fact, do wonders.
What are the easy ways to discover passion?
- Read books on personal growth.
- Follow great leaders who are passionate about their work.
- Set and determine your goals.
- Experiment with different skills and never stop learning.
Why passion is the key to success?
Passion is that fuel that strives you to do better in life. It ignites your soul and motivates you to give your best at everything.
Why is passion necessary for leadership?
People look up to leaders for inspiration, and if you’re not passionate, your followers won’t show any respect towards you. One of the top qualities of leadership is being passionate about your job.
Can I choose a career without passion?
Yes, you can choose a career without passion. Passion doesn’t necessarily mean to have a job out of it. It could be as simple as having a hobby that you love doing.
How to answer an interview question – What are you passionate about?
An interviewer asks the question of passion for determining if the person is well rounded and what their interests and values are.
Keep these following points in mind while answering the interview question on passion.
- Pick something that genuinely excites you.
- Choose something that you actively take part in.
- Select a passion that you have in-depth knowledge of.
Do you know what your passions are? Are you pursuing them? What steps did you take to discovering what you are passionate about? Let us know in the comments below!
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