Do you have a Passion?Passion

I often hear people talk about their job – the thing they have to do. Comments like ‘I’m so bored of my job,  but it pays the bills’, the sight of people with long faces dragging their feet into the work building in the morning … made worse by the sinking feeling on a Monday morning. Can you related to this analogy? Maybe you find yourself thinking ‘if only there was something else, but I don’t know what I’d do instead’. The above all implies that you are at the effect side of something else and how would it be if I told you that didn’t need to be the case – you can choose to take back the reigns of your life or put yourself back in the driving seat and create the life you want, that makes you happy and fulfilled, a life with purpose or whatever else it is that you want from life. Have you ever paused to consider a simple question, what am I passionate about?

Do you ever wish that you could change your job/career/business? You see this scenario is not rare – it happens to people who are business owners/entrepreneurs too – I was talking to a lovely gentleman the other day who owns his own business – he said ‘the thing is Laura I’ve fallen out of love with the business, I’m bored of it, it just doesn’t do it for me anymore, I’m not passionate about’.

In today’s blog I’m going to talk about 2 things; finding your passion and unleashing your potential through deciding, committing and acting – the principles I’m going to cover below are not specific to business/career, you can apply them to all sorts of areas of your life …

Find Your Passion …

Values are the fuel that drives us. They either motivate us to move towards what we want, or away from what we don’t want. So it follow that if you want to have passion in an area of your life, to get your mojo back, your spark, the first thing you need to do is stop and have a think. This may seem basic, but so many of us are so busy running around all day everyday, we don’t pause to ask ourselves any questions – let alone wait to hear what there response is.

If you can, grab yourself a couple of pieces of paper or open up your smartphone or laptop and work through the following questions writing down the responses. I would encourage you to spend a good 5 minutes on each questions – don’t skim over them, really consider them in the context of your life right now … even when you think you’ve ‘dried’ up – simply re-read the question and pause and let a few more things pop into your mind for you to jot down  … don’t censor what pop’s into your head, just jot it down (you can analyse it later). Before you start make sure that your in the right place to do this – if not, come back later and carry on …

  • What do you love?
  • What do you hate?
  • What are you passionate about?
  • What do you really want?
  • What really drives you in your life?

How was that? – These questions are designed to get you thinking and get you considering what’s really important to you – what you want and what you want to avoid.

Once you’ve completed this exercise go back over the lists and see if there are any trends, if there are any surprises, or if anything pops out off the page at you. Take your time – there’s no need to rush. For example, notice – what do you hate that you want to avoid, things you love that you want to ensure you get more of, what are the things you are already passionate about and what do you notice about them, what is that really drives you.

Decide and Commit …

So you’ve now got some ideas about what gets you fired up, what get’s your passion flowing as well as what to avoid. So what you doing to do about it? (please don’t be the kind of person to just file that information away and say ‘that was interesting’).

Now you need to decide what action you are going to take, commit to taking action and unleash your potential!

Below are some more questions for you to consider:

  • What are the 2 decisions you made in the past that have positively shaped your life? How did they change your life for the better? What finally got you to decide?
  • Where are two new decisions you are committed to making now and how will they powerfully improve your life forever?

These 2 questions are designed to firstly get you to recognise where you have decided in the past, taken positive action that made a positive difference (if you like it’s to prove to your conscious and unconscious mind that you can and already have done this deciding and committing stuff successfully!). The second question is getting you to decide (for yourself) to do something different – I’m excited to hear what you decided to commit to doing!

Having done this exercise for the first time some years back, I decided that for my health and fitness I would give up caffeine straight away (I never had another cup, which stopped my migraines that had been hampering my life and ability to do everything I wanted to do) and I decided that I would change my job – both of which I did!

Whatever you decide to do (big or small) I hope you enjoyed the exercise. However, I want to say one more thing before signing off. Most people fail to achieve their goals in life for one simple reason, they never….

Take Action!

.. I don’t want you to be one of the people who doesn’t take the first step. So make sure you commit to yourself and hold yourself accountable to taking the first step …

  • Take Immediate Action – in the words of Tony Robbins, ‘urgency is power’
  • Take consistent Action – get a plan,  be honest with yourself, when you going to do x,y,z
  • How will you know when you’ve achieved it? (can you measure it)

Once you’ve taken action, don’t be afraid to course correct if you need to tweak it – that’s totally fine – being flexible in our behaviour and noticing when we should flex it is a key skill that many successful people have.

If you want someone to help you shape and set some amazing goals, direction and next steps, as well as keeping you accountable – let me know, I’m happy to help you. You can contact us via: [email protected]