Finding your passion

The world seems to have changed a fair amount, and one of the big changes is that we are not simply expected to stick with a job if we are not satisfied by it. Some of the phrases around are, “Do what makes you happy,” “Find your passion,” “Do what you enjoy,” and so on.

Sometimes it is much simpler to be trained to do something and then just do it rather than having to look inside yourself and find  what you are passionate about, what you care enough about to spend your life doing.

Another thing is that your passion is not going to hit you on your head one day and announce “Here I am!” If you are not actively working on finding your passion, trying out things, finding out about things, you are probably not going to find your passion. Passionate artists didn’t pick up a microphone one day, sing a sentence, get instant global recognition and decide singing is their passion, an artist doesn’t pick up a paint brush for the first time, instantly get offered a million dollars for the painting they are about to do and then decide this is their passion. Nobody gets the results they may want from their passion instantly, they work at it constantly but they enjoy what they are doing and somewhere down the line they may get recognition and money from following their dream.

Your passion or dream alone is not enough to earn you money or afford you the lifestyle you may want. If you are good at painting and it is your passion and your dream is to be a globally recognized painter, it does not matter how many paintings you create, if you do not follow through with all the other steps you will just be another struggling artist. You need to do more than just creating the paintings, even if your passion is only to create them. You have to attend shows, market your paintings, manage your money, and so many other steps to becoming a successful painter.

So even though pursing your passion, finding extreme pleasure in what you do for a living is a big factor these days, it is not a simple fact of it hitting you on the head one day and only what you like doing being all you have to do. There is a lot of looking and a lot of work that you don’t like that will have to go into making your passion a success for you.

Passions come wrapped up in a variety of tasks that have to be done to make it successful, if you want to own a shop because you like the idea of sitting behind the counter and getting to provide a range of products to grateful customers, have you also considered that a shop requires inventory control, accounting, shelf stocking, supplier engagement, advertising, security, cleaning and a bunch of other tasks. You will either have to do those too, or hire people to do them, so a simple passion for sitting behind a counter dealing with customers can involve more than you bargained for. A solution then is to go and work for someone who has a shop and you just get the job of sitting behind the counter and dealing with customers, the tradeoff would be that you are then an employee, with a very low pay position and no security or building towards a fabulous future.

If you think your passion should not be focused around making money, you either have to realize you are only going to get to pursue your passion in between working or you are going to have a very difficult life financially which in turn means you won’t be able to live where you want, eat what you want, wear what you want or do what you want, a passion that doesn’t take into account financial earnings, usually is unsustainable unless someone else is financially supporting you.

So to find your passion  you have to look for it, then you have to accept all the tasks involved around it, or simply find a job you are qualified for and stop worrying about finding your passion and pursuing your dreams, just be a worker bee.

There are people who’s passion, or at least job, is to help other people find their passion. If you are not succeeding in finding your passion yourself, you can utilize their service and get some help in finding your passion.

A word of warning though, they are not going to tell you to go home, turn on the T.V and binge watch your favorite series until your passion hits you on the head. They are going to give you work, lists to fill out, questions that require you to really think about yourself and what you like and don’t like, all in an effort to help you understand yourself and find your own passions. So if you think going to someone is the simple solution for removing any effort you have to put in, that is not the case. If you are not going to be willing to do the work they give you to do, then you are wasting your money by going to them.

You should at least do what you can for yourself first before going to someone, if you are really stuck with something then you can engage a person to help you move past that point. Just going to someone because you can’t be bothered to do anything yourself, is not going to do much for anyone if you then can’t be bothered to do what they tell you to.

The internet has a lot of resources available to help you find your passion, a search for guides on finding your passion will get you headed in the right direction. These will include things like making lists of what you like and don’t like, considering what you enjoy doing for extended periods of time, thinking about how you can earn money doing these things and many such questions.

Putting some work into finding what makes you happy and will afford you the life you want will save you years of misery, so put the work in and then lead the life you want.