What is one thing one should do to discover his or her passion?
To help you discover your passion, we asked life and career coaches and business leaders this question for their best insights. From following your heart and intuition to paying attention to compliments, there are several actions you may need to take deliberately to help you discover your passion in life.
Here are 11 things to do to discover your passion:
- Follow Your Heart and Intuition
- Take Notes
- Travel to Discover Yourself
- Try Everything
- Set Aside Time for Reflection
- Keep Pushing Ahead With Your Heart Desire
- List Your Interests and Experiment With Them
- Choose Your Passion From What Appeals to Your Interest and Curiosity
- Find Your Why and Don’t Limit Yourself to Just One Thing
- Note Activities That Make You Lose Your Sense of Time
- Pay Attention to Compliments
Follow Your Heart and Intuition
One thing you should do to discover your passion is follow your heart and intuition. It is important to try new things, step outside of your comfort zone, network with others, don’t be afraid to ask questions to someone you admire in the field you are interested in pursuing, find a mentor in the field you are interested in and ask them how they got to where they are today. Study and research different paths on how to get to where you want to be.
It is important to really know yourself and what makes you the happiest, and what makes you feel like you are the best version of yourself that you can possibly be.
The only person that you should want to be better than is the person that you were yesterday. Helping others and making others feel good is the most important thing in life! Ask yourself how you are contributing to other people’s success and goals when you pursue your interests. Keep trying and never give up hope when pursuing your dreams! Give your all in everything you try.
Jen Kalis, Fit with Jen K LLC
Take Notes
How to discover your passion in life is to start taking notes when you are happy. Start taking notes when the day speeds by and note what work activity you were doing. If you are not doing what you love, you’ll burn out. The most successful entrepreneurs and people find what they love to do – and they do it everyday. The first step is just taking notes when you feel HAPPY doing work.
Trevor Rappleye, CorporateFilming.com & FranchiseFilming.com
Travel to Discover Yourself
From my experience, traveling can help us discover things we have never thought of before. Why? Because traveling is about seeing something different from what you’re used to. It allows you to get to know people from different backgrounds with stories that can inspire you to change your life path. You can look at your daily life from another perspective and question what truly makes you happy.
Traveling is also a great way to find your passion. When you travel, your mind becomes free of all the clutter you experience every day.
You can see what is good for you and be creative when thinking of your personal goals. People tend to think more outside the box while away from home, which often drives them to discover their passions and reshape their value system. So, when you travel, be open to new experiences and try to get to know people around you. Such an approach will help you discover your passions and bring you closer to answering the question of who you really are.
Dorota Lysienia, LiveCareer
Try Everything
If you’re in a place where you don’t know what you’re passionate about, it’s time to literally try everything. Take a painting class, go skydiving, pick up a volleyball and go to a court – the options are truly endless. You won’t know what you love unless you try different things – figuring it out can be difficult but once you discover your passion, that’s it! If you’re apprehensive about where to start, consider bringing a friend or a group with you to make you feel more comfortable. Discovering your passion can be a challenge but it is so rewarding once you are able to figure it out. You can even start at home by watching YouTube videos or taking a course online. This is not the time to limit yourself, be open-minded and excited to try everything in the hopes of discovering your unique passions.
Lev Berlin, Recipal
Set Aside Time for Reflection
If you take time for silence and reflection (even just 5 minutes per day), you’ll feel more inspired. When you can check in with your heart and tap into the Universal Intelligence around us, you’ll be guided in beautiful ways.
To discover your passion, you can ask yourself the following questions: 1) What are your natural abilities? 2) What does everyone praise you for doing (e.g. dancing, teaching, juggling)? 3) What do you love doing more than anything else? Something you can get lost in. 4) How can you combine your natural ability + what you love in a way to inspire people? We all have the answers within, we just have to trust ourselves and make a date to check in.
Angela Christian, Angela Marie Christian, LLC
Keep Pushing Ahead With Your Heart Desire
Passion is easiest derailed by people who don’t support or agree with it. But don’t let the naysayers or dream-killers knock you off your path. Living out one’s passion in real life takes time to hone – but it takes equal parts resistance and resilience. If you’re a chess prodigy, don’t let the football quarterbacks tell you you’re too smart even when you’re their best wide receiver. If you think you’ll be the next great doctor to solve cancer, figure it out. Rockets into space? Do it. “No” is the only obstacle to everyone living out his or her true passion.
Vincent Chan, Christina
List Your Interests and Experiment With Them
List Your Interests and Experiment With ThemDiscovering your passion is no easy quest. You cannot discover your passion by simply reading books, attending university courses, or watching Youtube videos. Though there is one Youtube channel that stands out here and it’s Michelle Khare’s, the truth is discovering your passion is a matter of trying it out yourself. So if you’re a high school or first-year college student, don’t be afraid to experiment.
If designing is one of your interests, go out and ask your contacts or designer friends for a chance to help them or job shadow their work. You can even reach out to people who practice this passion online and ask them what their working day is like, what they like about it, what they don’t like about it, and what they struggle with. Remember, always be curious; ask questions, and don’t hesitate to learn or work for free, especially at the start.
In the end, nothing beats real-life experience; it’ll show you where your real passion lies.
Yara Abboud, yarawriting.com
Choose Your Passion From What Appeals to Your Interest and Curiosity
Passion is not a discovery, it is a choice based on one’s values, talents, skills, interests, and acknowledgment one receives. Pay attention the next time you read an online newspaper or a magazine, what titles jump out at you? Is there a pattern? There are certain topics you want to know more about and talk about and there is a high chance that that could become your passion.
Ana Malovrh, GerSi, Ana Malovrh s.p.
Find Your Why and Don’t Limit Yourself to Just One Thing
Finding your one true passion can be difficult and tiring, but who said it had to be just one? If you are a person who has several interests and passions why not explore which one of them you can do to make money. Some of the most successful entrepreneurs and social media sensations make their money by doing something they are extremely passionate about.
To start, make a list of 5 things you like and 5 things you don’t like. This will be part of your guide to finding your why.
Your why is what makes you excited to go to work, happy to be with coworkers who share your passion, or can be simple like you know you are helping someone in need. The list you just made should also include 3 hobbies or activities you enjoy and wish you had more time for like the gym, guitar lessons, or surfing. It is possible that one of these hobbies can become the passion to drive you to success. Revise this list as frequently as you need to and keep exploring activities that bring you joy.
Desiree Chouinard, Argon Agency
Note Activities That Make You Lose Your Sense of Time
Note Activities That Make You Lose Your Sense of Time‘Passion’ when used as a noun can sometimes create overwhelm when you are in search of it, feel as though you don’t possess it, and assume everyone has it but you. When the pressure of discovering passion is released and instead the focus turns to examining functions and events in your life where you lose your sense of time because you’ve been enthralled in an activity, that’s the source of your passion. What are you doing when you’ve lost your sense of time? Who were you with and what did you accomplish? Noticing when and how that happens leads to naming the passion you already possess. The challenge is to not let searching for passion interfere with recognizing and identifying that which is already within you.
Stacy Berg Jackson, SBJ Consulting, Inc.
Pay Attention to Compliments
Compliments are a great way to help one identify their passion in life. When one does something exceptionally well, they get complimented for it. If every time you do something like cooking, baking, writing creative work, painting or whatever else you do positive comments come your way, it is time to take a deeper look into that activity. The compliments could be the pointers you just need to know that you are passionate about that activity especially when you love doing it and you do it so effortlessly.
Charlie Wilson, Shanghai Yichong Information Technology Co., Ltd.
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