How to find your passion and stick to it

People always tell you to “follow your passion”. Is it that easy? Infact what exactly is passion?

According to the dictionary it has multiple meanings, but in the context of this blog post it means “a strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm, or desire for anything”, for example a passion towards music. There has been limited but significant research in Psychology and philosophy about the relationship of Passion and overall well-being and happiness; which collectively suggests that when you are passionate towards an activity and dedicate your time and energy to it, you tend to be happier in life. But how do you know what your passion is? So now you must be thinking, “I have never figured out what my real passion is in so many years, and she is going to tell me in this blog post what my passion is, Impossible!!” Hmm.. Well, I will not be able to tell you what your real passion is, but I will definitely be able to direct you towards the path of its discovery. So let’s embark upon this exciting journey!

So, there are 3 kinds of activities in life:

-          First category is for activities that you like, and more or less are a silent observer to them, For me its watching TV, listening to music

-          Second category is for activities that you love, meaning a little more than just being an observer to them, for example I love to dance, and cook, I love science

-          The third and most relevant category is for activities you are excited or passionate about, activities where you have the ability to create something, could be something totally out of the box, or giving your own unique flavor to what is already out there in the field. Therefore Passion and Creation are directly proportional, meaning more the passion about something, more is your ability to create something new in that field and vice versa. Ability to create could be something which is innate, or something which you learn with practice, or develop interest after trying different things in life. For me such an activity is creative writing, where I can create something new in the form of poetry, and experience immense pleasure and satisfaction.

So to find what your real passion is, you need to find the third category of activities where you can create something new or bring your own flavor to something which is already present in that field.

So now, say we are successful in finding what our passion is… then how to stick with it?

Everyone tells you to follow your passion, but no one tells you that there are some conditions applied if you follow it! And these are:

1.       You got to earn something from it, either money or fame or both

2.       You have to be better than your contemporaries in that particular field

3.       That activity should be liked by other people as well, coz hey we are all living in a society and you need to have everyone’s approval on what you do!

Let’s deal with this one by one…

So the first mistake we make while following our passion is that we become impatient to reach an outcome, which by the way, has to be a positive one, according to the society. And in that impatience we forget to enjoy the whole process it takes to reach that outcome. And when it takes more time to reach our defined outcome, we tend to get bored, disappointed and demotivated, and ultimately drop our new found passion! So the solution…

Don’t worry about the outcome, just enjoy the process. Enjoy the challenges, the learning, the ease, everything… Just enjoy your journey!

The second mistake we make is to compare ourselves with others, and in that process we forget that everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses and it’s not them we are competing with, we are competing with our own selves and trying to become a better version of ourselves every day. It’s like comparing apples to oranges, which to me doesn’t make sense!

So the solution, just be a better version of yourself, improve your own shortcomings at every step.

The third mistake we make is getting insecure, that what if the particular activity we are passionate about is not liked by others. Let’s be honest, these days everything is measured by the number of likes, dislikes, views, subscribers, followers etc etc on all social media platforms! While showcasing your passion or talent to the world is a good thing, but not believing in yourself isn’t. So I believe that we should listen to everyone, maybe take their opinions too to improve ourselves but the most important thing is that in this whole process we should have a faith in our own abilities.

So the take home message from this video is:

CREATE

ENJOY

IMPROVE

BELIEVE

And repeat!

Simple but complicated huh!

Well, it might be complicated to follow but with practice and perseverance anything can be achieved!