How to Find Your Passion
“You are so lucky you have found your passion, I still don’t know what mine is”
This is one of the most common things people say to me as they see me passionately pursuing a life in practising and teaching mindfulness.
The next line I then get asked is…. “How do I find my passion?”
The reality is, there is no short sentence that will answer that and hence why I decided to put it in a blog for you. I want to preface this by saying, people will find their passion in different ways but I wanted to share my experience with you and what I have learnt along the way about finding and pursuing my passion in hope that you will find yours.
How I discovered my passion for mindfulness
This is one of the most common things people say to me as they see me passionately pursuing a life in practising and teaching mindfulness.
The next line I then get asked is…. “How do I find my passion?”
The reality is, there is no short sentence that will answer that and hence why I decided to put it in a blog for you. I want to preface this by saying, people will find their passion in different ways but I wanted to share my experience with you and what I have learnt along the way about finding and pursuing my passion in hope that you will find yours.
I realised in my adulthood that the thing I had been practising all along, actually was my passion.
Sometimes, something can be standing right in front of your eyes but you won’t see it until the right time comes.
I have always been into my spirituality, ever since I was a kid. You can read more about how I got into mindfulness in my blog here. I practised (and still practise) mindfulness with different teachers as I used it as a tool to grow and be the best version of myself no matter what age I was. I refused to be another lost soul in this world. I wanted to make the most out of MY life.
I then got to my mid 20’s where I had the biggest revelations and finally found the keys to real long lasting happiness. My whole life suddenly had so much meaning and purpose to it. This is because my whole mindfulness practice shifted and delivered me REAL RESULTS that I had been searching for.
Results that I help you get with Mirosuna.
HOWEVER, I also realised that I still couldn’t be truly happy if those around me weren’t.
So with that and my other passion of coaching people, I decided to create Mirosuna (my passion project).
Mirosuna is my vehicle to be able to make an impact in this world. It is my way to support you on your journey as I am on mine. Everyday, I get to live my dream, my passion and my purpose.
You know it’s really hard having a business, especially when mixed with your passion but every single time one of my clients tell me how I have changed their life, I just feel like EVERYTHING is so worth my while and how incredibly lucky I am to be able to help people.
One thing I know for sure is that when people are passionate about living their best lives, regardless of whether they have a ‘passion’ or not, there is this amazing energy that surrounds them. It fuels them and gives them purpose. It gets them out of bed in the morning. It makes life so worth living.
I hope that through this blog, not that you necessarily find your passion but you find that living a life with passion is sometimes more important than having a passion that we may struggle to find.
How I discovered my passion for mindfulness
A passion is not always one grand thing that you need to find
Sometimes we feel that our passion has to be this one single grand thing or hobby that appears in our life and stays forever. We then take this one thing and build a life or career around it. This is not always true.
Your passion CAN CHANGE. You can have different things that you are passionate about in the different chapters of your life. The passions that you have as a child are different to yours as a teenager and adult. When we sit here wondering what our passion is as an adult, we forget that one day we will become an elderly and again our passion can change. So there is no need to be so fixated on finding a ‘forever passion’. Instead, we can re-frame and take the pressure off. Think of it as what can I be passionate about in this life stage that I am in, knowing that it may change later.
When I was in my teens, I was really passionate about making crafts and selling them. I later become passionate about dancing and did that for years. Some passions come and go and some that stay around for a long time. Some of my passions that have never changed are rescuing dogs, property investment and mindfulness.
Knowing that things change and we change, it is important that we find joy in what we are doing right now instead of always looking for the next grand thing.
Your passion will not appear out of thin air
Our passion doesn’t just fall out of the sky. Unless for example, you have a beautiful voice and also love singing then BOOM, you might have a passion brewing right there!
A lot of my clients are sitting and waiting for their passion to suddenly appear. The problem with this method is that you can’t always expect it to show up if you are nothing differently in your life to find it. Instead I teach them to stop searching for IT but instead, go through a process of elimination of trying new things to see what YOU DON’T LIKE.
Follow a process of elimination. In the process of knowing what you don’t like, you end up finding what you do like! It’s like dating, you date a series of duds when you are young, only to learn what it is that your truly want in your future partner.
I have given so many things a go in my life in pursuit of passion. I did my scuba diving course to overcome my fear of deep water thinking maybe I could be passionate about exploring the depths of the ocean. But no, I ended up hating the cold of the ocean instead (I’m one of those people that can never get warm, it’s so damn annoying).
My husband and I discovered shooting guns when we were in Budapest. We loved it so much we got our gun licence in Victoria. Shooting was very enjoyable, I became good at it and it helped me train my mind and body’s focus and coordination (a very important skill for meditation). BUT, it still wasn’t my passion so I gave it up.
I have taken up so many more things like gymming, making wooden ladders to sell, spray-tanning people in which I found passion in none. But more importantly, they taught me what I didn’t truly love.
Your passion does not always have to become your career
Your passion can remain as your hobby or you can make a living out of it. Only you will know what is right for you. When finding and evaluating your passion, you should also ask yourself what category you want it to remain in.
A lot of people dislike their jobs because they feel like they aren’t passionate about it. Whilst in an ideal world, we all do what we love for a living, it doesn’t always have to be the case. If you are not passionate about your job but it helps enable you to pursue your passion on the side then I’d say that is pretty good!
So if you are looking to be ‘passionate’ about your job and making your job your passion, then consider whether you need to re-frame this thinking. Again, only you will know the best answer.
Turning your passion into your career can be a dangerous road but can be very rewarding if done properly. If you are planning on doing this then you just need to ensure you have a very strong mindfulness practice in place as you’re going to need it for what is to come! It’s a fine line between your passion turning into something you loathe when your money and livelihood are involved.
The point here is, it doesn’t always have to be a bad thing if you don’t love your job, it may just be serving another purpose in your life.
You might already have a passion but don’t realise it
Like my story above, where I was always into mindfulness, I later realised that is my passion and I wanted to share that with the world. If you fall in this bucket and am wondering well why hasn’t that ‘thing that I like turned into my passion yet’, well it’s because the universe has its own rhythm and time.
Sometimes we need to grow, we need to overcome a series of challenges before that thing that we like turns into something we realise we don’t want to live without and then something we decide to take up more seriously. Can you imagine me teaching mindfulness at 20? No way! I wouldn’t have any of the experiences that I need to be teaching it like I do today.
Things take time and if you love something as much as you think you do, it may become your passion. And if it doesn’t? Well maybe you didn’t love it as much as you thought you did.
Your passion doesn’t always have to be a THING
A passion is not always a thing like ‘Oh my passion is fishing, writing, playing sport, interior design, music’.
You can have a passion for helping people, rescuing animals, speaking up about the struggles of motherhood, building homes for the less fortunate, you get my gist. These passions are sometimes less obvious but gives you another dimension of a ‘passion’ to explore.
Life is still great without a passion
The last thing I’d want for you is to think that life sucks until you have found your passion. This is SO not true. There are so many other things in life to find joy in, you don’t always have to have this ONE BIG THING going for you. If you spend your days with your loved ones, get to do a few hobbies, watch your garden grow, cook some amazing food or whatever it is, who says you can’t fill your day and life with joy?
My advice is, stay opened minded and keep trying new things but don’t worry too much whether you find your ‘passion’ today or not. It will come, and if it doesn’t, you at least are living a joyous life in the meantime!
EXERCISE To start finding your passion
Okay so now you’re sitting here thinking, I’ve read all this and still don’t have a clue about where to start or what activity to try next.
STEP 1
It is time to develop a short plan of attack. Get a notebook and start answering the following:
What are the activities your life consists of right now?
E.g. Mine would be: My day job in technology, my mindfulness practice and Mirosuna, exercise, friends & family, gardening, going to the markets and cooking, caring for foster dogs, my studies in eastern philosophy and spending time with my husband.What are hobbies and things you have done in the past outside of your day job?
E.g. Mine would be things like: Pottery, Gun shooting, Scuba, Dancing, GymmingOut of the activities in Q1 and Q2, what do you like and not like about the main ones?
E.g. I liked Scuba because it pushed me out of my comfort zone but I didn’t like it because it made me really uncomfortably cold and was physically exhausting. It is also really hard to get to a dive site regularly and therefore it’s not something I could do weekly even if it was my passion.What are your strengths in your personality and the things you love doing?
E.g. I love coaching and teaching people on specific topics like building a business, buying their first property, how to excel at their career, how to lead and influence others and finally how to help people build a mindfulness practice. My strength is crafting a strategy and message that works for my vision and mission.Some ideas for you to consider are: What groups of people or beings do you feel drawn to e.g. the elderly, children, adults, animals. etc. Do you find it more joyful when you are around others or when you are alone. Think about the things that you do enjoy doing them, ask yourself, what is it about it that you actually love? Are you an outdoors or indoor person, do you like using your hands to make things, do you like helping others?
What are things you dislike and are not good at?
E.g. I don’t enjoy physical exhaustion therefore that means being a passionate exercise junkie is not my jam. I am not a good introvert so I would not do well with a passion that can only be enjoyed by myself, like shooting got lonely for me because most the time, I had to shoot inside a box, there is not much interaction.Some ideas for you to consider are: Do you like being around people? Are you more introverted or extroverted? Do you like being more hands on and doing or do you prefer more mental work like thinking. Do you like creative expression like drawing, acting, singing or do you like something more relaxing and reclusive where you go inwards instead?
Consider the balance of your life right now. What do you think is missing?
Some ideas for you to consider: If you are working non stop, then you are probably missing rest, joyful activities or time for relaxation. If you do a 9-5 job that you aren’t passionate about and you spend the other hours doing mundane things, you probably need something to get your creativity going. That is not always just things like arts, film making, story writing etc, creativity is teaching your brain to approach situations differently, coming up with new ways to solve a problem. Like raising a child requires creativity too as you constantly need to come up with new ways to teach them things. It is very important that we keep our creativity up as it brings you life and energy. Otherwise you will walk around like a zombie living in autopilot everyday.Other ideas to consider are: Are you always around people and need space or breathe? Or are you always alone and need some company? Are you investing enough in your own personal development? Do you have the right people in your life to support you?
What are some activities that you have always wanted to try and are curious about but have never got around to?
E.g. Perhaps you feel like you can help others via your experience of raising a child and enjoy writing, then maybe writing a blog is something you have considered. Or you have always enjoyed fishing and want to run a community sharing tips on the best fishing techniques and gear. Maybe you are passionate about graphic design and have been considering doing a course on it.When in your day do you get time to explore something new and how much time is that?
We need to be realistic and work with what we have when exploring new activities. If we want to study a full time course but cannot find 2 hours a day then perhaps we need to consider an online introduction course first.What topics do you feel passionate about right now?
E.g. Human or animal rights, technology, mental health, health and wellness, environmental health, charity, supporting poverty, education, beauty and the list goes on.
STEP 2
Now, start a new page in your notebook and fill in the gaps:
Something that I really need more of in my life right now is _____(a)_____. If I had _____(a)_____, I would feel more _____(b)_____.
I’d like to start exploring what I’m passionate about. It’s going to take some trial an error but here is where I can start.
I have tried these activities in the past _____(c. list the main ones)_____. The reason why I didn’t like them was because _____(d)_____. I know that I need to find something that I am truly interested in and something that isn’t _____(e)_____.
The things and topics that I am most into right now are _____(f)_____. My personality suits them well because I am _____(d)_____. Perhaps I can start to explore some options that are related to this or somehow involve these things.
Here are some ways that I could potentially explore my passion in _____(f)_____:
Input some ways you can use (f) to help people
Input some courses that are related to (f)
Input activities/business ideas that are related to (f)
Input some ways you can incorporate more (f) into your life
Perhaps I can start _____(g)_____ with my interest in (f).
To do this, I need to set aside some time. I will try and do this when _____(h)_____.
I will make a start on this right away, meaning I will contemplate on this and take action to explore (g). If I end up not liking it, then I’ll quit and move onto my next option quickly. I will keep my heart and mind open and persist in my pursuit of my passion.
- 1. Put pen to paper and write down your to do list in bullet point form. Try not to use your phone as the light may just disturb you.
- 2. Know that now you have written down everything, you can rest peacefully and not risk forgetting anything.
- 3. Repeat this to yourself - I do not need to worry. I have written down everything I need to do and it will be there when I wake up. I cannot worry about something that I cannot control at 2 am at night.
- 4. Then try this meditation below.
good luck!
Look at our children, they are the masters in the pursuit of passion. They switch their flavour of the month faster than I can write this blog. But when they discover something new, they go all in, they commit and then they move on when they have outgrown it. They never keep searching for what sparks their passion.
So what are you waiting for? Go out and try something new and move on if it’s not for you. At least now you know what you are NOT passionate about.
Good luck on your journey.
Love,
Sally Kellett
Founder of Mirosuna
