How To Find Your Inner Passion: If You Love What You Do You’ll Love Your Life!

Ever think that what you do for a liv­ing is some­thing you slipped into almost accidentally? Have you felt, par­tic­u­lar­ly now dur­ing these uncer­tain times, that you wish you could hit the “reset” but­ton on your life, start over, and become an entire­ly dif­fer­ent you by becom­ing an entire­ly new, dif­fer­ent some­thing? Becom­ing a whole new you is not as dif­fi­cult as it may seem. Many peo­ple have shed their for­mer selves and gone on to more sat­is­fy­ing, reward­ing lives by dis­cov­er­ing their inner pas­sion and turn­ing it into their livelihoods. There isn’t a secret to this, but there is a process, and it takes time and ded­i­ca­tion to pur­sue and real­ize these goals. Here are some sug­ges­tions on how you can take what you love – what you are pas­sion­ate about – and turn it into more than just an income generator. It turns your whole life upside down in the very best pos­si­ble way and becomes a won­der­ful rai­son d’e­tre or rea­son for liv­ing. Once you’re on the path to dis­cov­er­ing your inner pas­sion and real­ize how reward­ing it can be, you’ll won­der why on earth you did­n’t start the process soon­er. Read on to find out how!

1- Ask Yourself What You Love To Do

Let’s say you work all day in an office as a finan­cial advis­er or an exec­u­tive assis­tant. Although the work is steady and has pro­vid­ed you with a good income, a reli­able one that has allowed you to save, take hol­i­days and so forth, it does­n’t sat­is­fy you. It rewards you for the work you do, but it does not sat­is­fy you – there is a big difference. Sat­is­fac­tion comes from a job well done, of course, but we’re talk­ing about the kind of sat­is­fac­tion you get deep down in your soul when you do some­thing you love. Let’s use as an exam­ple, play­ing music; many peo­ple who work all day find them­selves uplift­ed and joy­ous when they take gui­tar or piano lessons. Learn­ing music (or anoth­er lan­guage, or anoth­er of many oth­er dif­fer­ent art forms) takes pas­sion and ded­i­ca­tion, but can it become your livelihood? Absolute­ly! We don’t mean you should quit your day job in the hope of becom­ing the next Bey­once, but you can decide to make it your life by becom­ing good at and then becom­ing a teacher your­self. Hence, the process goes from dis­cov­er­ing the pas­sion, learn­ing it, excelling at it, and then using it to change how you live and what you do. Our exam­ple of music is just that – an exam­ple – your inner pas­sion could be some­thing else entire­ly. Maybe you’ve always want­ed to be a carpenter. Becom­ing one – a good one – might enable you to make fur­ni­ture and sell it online. The world is full of pos­si­bil­i­ties, and the first step of dis­cov­er­ing your inner pas­sion is learn­ing what you love and what you would love to do if you were told you could choose any­thing at all as your profession.

2- Do a Whole Lot Of Research

Being on the out­side means it easy to view a pas­sion with rose-coloured glass­es, so it’s vital that you learn all you can about it. Don’t just look some­thing up on Google and leave it at that. Please make an effort to read thor­ough­ly about your pas­sion by buy­ing books and, more impor­tant­ly, talk­ing to peo­ple who already do it. Stick­ing with our exam­ple of mak­ing music your new focus – talk to some­one already ful­ly engaged in that world, per­haps as a teacher or play­er. Sel­dom does it hap­pen that, if you express a keen and gen­uine inter­est in the work some­one does that they turn down your request for infor­ma­tion and guid­ance – just the opposite. Most peo­ple are pleased when some­one rec­og­nizes the val­ue and worth of their pur­suit, and they are hap­py to share the knowl­edge and insights they’ve gained. They can offer the unvar­nished truth about the dif­fi­cul­ties, too, which are an impor­tant part of the research you’re doing. Hear­ing upbeat sto­ries about your long time pas­sion is not enough; hear­ing sto­ries that con­vey the hard­ships are just as important. If you still want to pur­sue your pas­sion when all the facts are at your dis­pos­al, you can be cer­tain you’ll be able to han­dle them when they crop up in real life.

3- Imagine All the Benefits of Pursuing Your Passion

When peo­ple fol­low their dreams and do what they love, many won­der­ful intan­gi­bles flow their way. Less stress, bet­ter sleep, a more pos­i­tive atti­tude and health­i­er rela­tion­ships are just a few of these invis­i­ble ben­e­fits you’ll feel and notice once you start on a new, truer path. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly true of folks who kind of “fell into” what they do for a liv­ing and just haven’t had the time or the courage to pur­sue their true passions. Ask your­self how many peo­ple you know who have retired but still keep their hand in by work­ing at the same job for free – prob­a­bly no one! That’s a good barom­e­ter of how com­mit­ted and ded­i­cat­ed you are to your cur­rent work – would you do it for zero pay? If you hes­i­tate even a lit­tle answer­ing that, your true pas­sion is prob­a­bly in anoth­er area entirely.

4- Try it First Part-Time or As a Volunteer

Let’s say you have a pas­sion for work­ing with chil­dren but some­how got side­tracked into the retail sec­tor your whole work­ing life. Before you take a plunge that has finan­cial and emo­tion­al con­se­quences, try vol­un­teer­ing with an orga­ni­za­tion that works with kids, like Big Sis­ters or Girl Guides. Or offer to help out in a school class­room two days a week, if you can spare the time. The point is that you dip your toe, so to speak while work­ing on the details about how you can take the big plunge!

5- Expand Your World to Include Your Passion, Even if it’s Only Online For Now

Let’s say you’ve always want­ed to be a teacher, but you don’t know any. It may be tricky right now to estab­lish new friend­ships while the world is deal­ing with COVID-19, but noth­ing is stop­ping you from find­ing a whole new vir­tu­al world of friends and con­tacts online. Lots of social media plat­forms have groups ded­i­cat­ed to par­tic­u­lar pro­fes­sions and pas­times, so get hunting! Before you know it, you’ll be linked up to lots of peo­ple who want to do, are doing or did do what you’re pas­sion­ate about. And those resources are invaluable.

Last but not least

Dis­cov­er­ing your inner pas­sion and chang­ing your life is not easy – it takes ded­i­ca­tion and determination. You may be greet­ed by skep­ti­cism and resis­tance when you announce your inten­tions to change your life and head out on a whole new path. Changes this big, this pro­found have a way of scar­ing those who view you through one lens, per­haps as a banker rather than a baker. But don’t be deterred. Don’t be dis­cour­aged. Remem­ber, no one ever gets to their death bed wish­ing they had done less; every­one wish­es they’d shown more courage, lis­tened to their inner voice and fol­lowed their hearts. Your pas­sions are what make you, you – they sat­is­fy and reward you in ways that pur­su­ing some­thing sole­ly for mon­ey nev­er can. Whether your goal is mak­ing a pas­sion into your full-time pro­fes­sion or you sim­ply want to start try­ing new things on a part-time basis, it’s nev­er too late to begin. George Bernard Shaw did not have his first play pro­duced until he was in his 60s, but he stuck with his pas­sion, nev­er giv­ing in to the temp­ta­tion to try some­thing, any­thing eas­i­er. And nei­ther should you! Life is too short and far too pre­cious to be wast­ed won­der­ing why you ignored that lit­tle voice in your head, telling you that a sat­is­fy­ing life is one lived being true to your passions!