Finding Your Passion
This post was originally published on August 20, 2020, on Instagram as part of Her Growth Collective.
What inspires you?
What motivates you?
What brings you joy?
What feels like all of the hard work and challenging moments are worth it?⠀
The closer you get to answering these questions the closer you get to finding your passion... to finding your calling. ⠀
Finding your passion can feel like a never-ending struggle for many people. For this reason, I hear many thought leaders throwing passion out with the bath water these days, but I don’t think that is the right answer. Finding your passion is a long and winding journey, but I believe we are happier and more complete individuals when we take that journey.⠀
Here are a few of the mishaps I see that most commonly cause frustration on the passion journey:⠀
You don’t spend enough time in self-reflection to identify and connect with the things that bring you joy. Passion is in the details. It’s the small things that light you up. Some of my early hints were the joy of completing a to-do list, of solving a problem that had a positive impact (however small) on someone’s life, and of creating something from nothing. The seeds of my project management career were teeny tiny. That career evolved into Ambition Unboxed. Without regularly engaging in self-reflection, the hints may be so small that you miss them entirely. ⠀
You view “passion” as a single, intangible, elusive thing. We speak of passion as a singular noun but I think it’s plural. We are all complex creatures with many interests and more than one talent. Look for your micro-passions. The real, tangible things that give you great satisfaction. Your calling will combine your micro-passions in new and unexpected ways. These combinations will evolve and change at different stages in your growth journey. ⠀
You try to control the journey too tightly. We think of discovering our calling as another item on the to-do list. Graduate - check. Find my calling - check. In reality, finding your calling is much more experimental. It’s about trying and failing and trusting that each experiment is part of the process. The activities may feel like a scatter plot with seemingly little connection until there are enough points on the graph where you can step back and identify the trend line. (Again, reflection is key.)
You are being told that what you are passionate about is not a legitimate career path. This is a hard one because it may appear true at the time. Everything that has been done has been turned into a successful career, but the success rate is often pretty low. In many cases, that’s because people decided it wasn’t worth it. They chose to lean into another micro-passion or surrendered to become a clock-puncher (which is the saddest, but sometimes necessary, outcome). You may try it out and decide it’s not for you too. That’s okay. It’s all part of the experiment. Just let that be YOUR decision. Don’t let other people make that decision for you.
At the end of the day, if you are tuned in and aware then you are already headed in the right direction. Take the pressure off and try to enjoy the journey. 💛
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This post is written in partnership with #HerGrowthCollective, encouraging women to walk the path of self-development together.