Are You Trying To Find Your Passion? Stop.

Too often we hear the seemingly invaluable advice ‘follow (or find) your passion’.

On the surface it sounds right, but if we spend our lives searching for that one thing, the chances of us finding it are slim-to-none.

Instead, imagine we looked for the things that made us feel passionate. Imagine that we chased a feeling, and realized that it could come from almost hundreds, if not thousands of sources.We’ve all heard that the grass is greener on the other side. I think that ‘finding our passion’ promotes us to keep looking for one source of happiness, and not finding it in the countless things we do in a day that put a smile on our faces.

The grass may be greener on the other side, but I promise you it will be greenest where you water it. This means that if we appreciate the things that make us feel passionate, we can appreciate the what we have and where it comes from.

Looking for the things that make use feel passionate rather than our one passion means that our fulfillment could be derived from any number of actions, job, or situations – not just the ‘best’ one that we keep trying to find.

As a speaker, I can travel, learn, discover, and be challenged with my work- these are the things I value. With these values, though, I could be a musician, a photographer, a journalist, or any number of things that would make me feel the same things I do while being a speaker.

As an analyst, I could be working at any number of positions and regardless of who it was for, what I feel while doing it is going to be much more important.

Take an athlete for example— most athletes retire at a relatively young age but very few disappear completely when they are finished.

Why?

Because to feel the same sense of mastery, growth, and development they did from the field, ice, court, and so on, they have to be doing things that they can still get this passionate feeling satisfaction from.

I would suggest that the things we do in our everyday work lives (talking on the phone, writing emails, or in meetings, etc.) aren’t what matter in our pursuit of finding things that make us feel passionate. Unless we are connected to why, how, and who we do our work with, then we’ll never find our passion. That said, though, if the things we do make us feel passionate, then we can be doing any number of things.

Wherever we are in our career, it is important to know that finding our passion isn’t necessarily the best move we can make. Finding the things that make us feel passionate and going after them to the best of our ability is going to be a much more advisable route to take on the pursuit of happiness.

Passion isn’t necessarily derived from just one action; it can be derived from many.