Merging Passion + Career (First Steps)
You will never hear me say “find your passion” because I’m not a fan of the term.
Passion is not a rock, or a lost dog, or even a laundered $20 bill. Passion is something you are born with; something you experience and seek out; something lying dormant in you right now.
Although, “Find Your Passion Now” makes a great headline on Oprah magazine, it’s kinda misleading. You don’t even need help rediscovering it, when it comes down to it. You need some help recognizing it and a little more help living it. The most “helpful help” on this topic of passion is the help you get to make what you are passionate about more a part of your day and less an airy-fairy concept in your mind.
Here begins the real “the helpful help.”
As a kid, we lived each day with passion. As an adult, generally we don’t. But we are capable of it.
As a grown up, we get to make lots of choices. And some of those choices can even foster passion, create passion, build passion anew for us.
The first steps to merging career and passion is getting clear on exactly what you are passionate about at this particular stage of your life.
Note that I didn’t say what you are passionate about, period. Passion flows with seasons of life.
When I was 18, I was incredibly passionate about mind-body fitness. I was an aerobics instructor. I was a psychology-loving triathlete. I wanted to help people loose weight and overcome hurdles of mental/physical challenges. I thought maybe I could become a personal trainer.
When I was 22, I was incredibly passionate about meditation. I was a meditator. I had a guru. I wanted to teach people relaxation techniques and ways to rid themselves of debilitating stress. I thought maybe I would pursue a PhD. in Peace and Conflict Resolution and head to Tibet.
When I was 26, I was incredibly passionate about single parents. I created a social network just for them to hang out and get support from one another. I flew to New York to be an a morning show to talk about it. I thought maybe I’d be a spokesperson for single moms.
Now I’m 30 and what I’m absolutely passionate about is falling more and more in love with the whole pie of life and helping others do the same.
Passions flow with seasons of life…but notice, a certain undercurrent runs through them all. If you look at your life and get deep about the stages you have been through, you might see a theme begin to emerge.
My theme? To live and help others live to their fullest potential.
Here are some ways you can get clear about what your passion is at this particular stage of your life:
- Look at the books, movies and magazine articles you like to read.
- Look at your RSS feeds, what blog topics are you drawn to?
- Look at your past. Draw a map of of your journey through various passions. Is there anything that connects them? What common thread links them together?
Now, look at your career. Seeing similarities? Does this career makes sense given what your passionate about? If you can honestly answer yes, you are golden. If you can’t, well, then, my quick and dirty advice is to do something about it: start small.
In future posts we will get even deeper into the nitty-gritty “how-to’s”, but now you know the first steps: recognizing what it is you are passionate about and identifying whether or not the career you are currently in can give you the opportunity to experience and live-out those passions. Be sure to subscribe to the newsletter and RSS feed so you don’t miss the next steps.
Spend some time with the questions above. Share with us what you are discovering. Are your career and passions already lining up, or do more deliberate merges need to happen in your future?
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