What am I good at? What is my passion? These questions can sneak up on you at any point of time in your life, be it school, college or even when you’re currently employed. You see self-help magazines and agony-aunts tell us time and again that each of us is good at something or the other. All we need to do this summer is to tap into that potential passion and voila! We become the next Kim Kardashian. Truth be told, they’re not entirely wrong though. We all have certain things that we are passionate about. Whether it is singing, writing or dancing or star gazing, we’ve all got something that we enjoy doing. Things that we would do involuntarily. Now, what about those who haven’t found their calling yet? If you’re one of these lost souls, don’t worry. So this summer, I shall help you discover your passion with a few simple steps:
Think about what motivates your decisions
We tend to fall into a common trap of letting others determine our decisions. In order to find your true passion and motivation, you ought to tune in to your ‘true self ’ rather than you ‘social self’. Now, this is much easier said than done.
In order to find your passion, you must quit ‘shouldering’ yourself. Now this phrase was coined by the psychologist Clayton Barbeau to describe the process of letting external pressure influence what you do. This often burdens an individual and leads to a general sense of unhappiness among people. In order to find your passion, you must consciously insulate yourself from social pressures. Instead, ponder about what you want to do and what makes you happy. Remember that passion comes from authenticity. You can only be authentic when you honour yourself through your decisions rather than trying to satisfy own. Note that ‘authenticity’ is very personal and only you can have first access to your passion!
Figure out your values
Now you may wonder as to how this is connected to passion. But trust me, it is. In fact, research shows that if you aren’t living in accordance with your values, then you don’t feel particularly happy or connected. At the end of the day, finding your values helps you understand what drives you in life. Here’s how you can discover your values:
- Identify the times when you were the happiest
- Identify the times when you were the proudest
- Identify the times when you felt the fulfilled and satisfied
- List down values based on happiness, pride and fulfilment
Once you’re done answering these questions you will realise that you have not only made a list of activities that make you feel the above things but also those activities will highlight your core values and beliefs.
Think about what you love to do.
Okay, this may sound cliché but it’s true. You really ought to figure out what you love in life. This step requires a lot of introspection and it often takes time to realize. Just take a long hard look at your life and see whether you’re doing what you love. By ‘love’, I mean something that gives you pleasure or satisfaction. While doing this, you’ve got to keep in mind that if you’re doing something out of necessity, then it doesn’t qualify! Here are some of the things that you could ask yourself;
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- What are my goals?
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- What do I do most of the time?
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- What do I keep on trying to do?
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- What draws me?
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- If I could do one thing for the rest of my life, what would it be?
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- What do I love to do?
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- What would I do, even if I didn’t get paid to do it?
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- What makes me feel like nothing else exists?
- What activity makes me feel completely in my element?
What am I doing when I feel “right” or “beautiful” or “connected”
Figure out your talents
If you’re unable to figure out what you love doing, you could go instead, find where your talents lie. Maybe you write a lot or you won a singing competition when you were seven years old. One of the essential steps to finding your passion is to figure out where your talents lie. Now if you’re one of those lucky ones with one or more talents, then you can try and combine those talents. For eg; If you love writing and music, you could start a music blog maybe.
However, if you’re still having trouble finding what your passion is, you could pick up a new one! Think of all the things that you wanted to try but never could. Maybe its scuba diving, bungee jumping or even playing the guitar. It’s time you start now!
Try a vision board
Okay, this is a sure shot way to figure out what passion is. Some people are more visual thinkers who work better by collecting things that are meaningful to them. You could pin images and quotes that are meaningful to you and pin them up on a board. These images represent who you are, what you want to be and what you want out of your life. You could also create a virtual vision board on a site like Pinterest.
Therefore, it is imperative that you figure out where your passions lie this summer! There are various steps we could take to figure out what that passion is. However, finding your passion alone is not enough. You need to figure out how you could turn your passion into a profession!
Want to discover more about your passion? How To Convince Your Parents To Let You Pursue Your Passion
