Before You Find Your Passion: What You Need to Know

Remember back to when you were a kid, wanting to draw, read a book, when you were playing in your backyard or in the playground at school?

Did you give any deep thought behind what you were doing? You would just do things that you would find fun or you liked doing. You would build sandcastles at the beach, play with bugs in the garden, play teacher on your blackboard at home.

Most of the things that you did, no-one told you to do them; you just did them out of curiosity, necessity to want to know or do more, excitement for doing something new.

What was great about all of this was that if it was something that you didn't want to do, say for example playing football or basketball, you would just say so, and not do it.

It was simple; if you liked reading Harry Potter or making sandcastles, you just did it; no-one thought you were strange or shouldn't do it.  You soon learned either instinctively or experience, that if it was something that wasn't what you wanted or that wasn't right, not to do it again.

The Essence of Your Passion Is Found in Knowing What You Want!

I have been asked this question so many times over the years and it just came up again recently: "I don't know how to find my passion or even where to start," asking me, "How did you find your passion Julie?" and "How did you come to do the things you do?" After giving this a great deal of thought, I came to realize something that I learned with Anthony Robbins: the importance of knowing what it is that you want. I realized how important knowing what I wanted had been, and fortunately I was good at this.

As a kid, knowing what you want just seems to come automatically. You don't like crawling around on the floor, seeing everyone else walking, so an automatic decision was made in your brain: "Let's do this, let's walk," and guess what! You walk. That is why and how most people learn how to walk. It becomes your passion -- something that you want, something that you feel deep inside that you MUST DO!

When you were a child and you wanted to do something, you didn't have to think about prioritizing, you just knew that if you wanted to play football, you had to learn to play football or, say, basketball, any other sport for that matter. If you want to read and write then you had to learn to read and write. You did whatever you had to, so as to learn these new skills.

Somehow as you have reached your teenage years, adult years and senior years, the further up the adult ladder you go, the less automatic this becomes. Forgetting these simple, yet important things about learning new skills, having to consciously think about prioritizing what you want, how you want to be, what you want to do, in order to build the life you want. All of this as a kid came naturally because everything was new, but as you have become older, it just seems a little more difficult.

A major secret to finding your passion is to "Never Stop Learning" and "Never Put Limits on Yourself" unless it is something that you truly don't want to do.

Passion is built over a lifetime of learning, experiences, overcoming problems, tragedies, and situations.

Passion comes easier when we live and enjoy the moment. You may well have had a difficult day but not everything in that day has been negative or difficult. Reflect on the moments that you enjoyed. It might have been the walk you took in the morning, a coffee you shared with a work colleague, or the moment someone said that you did something well.

Negativity destroys passion. Unfortunately, your brain is hardwired to think negatively, so it is important to real in the positive moments and even to go out of your way to do this. Positive affirmations together with action will help to build your passion.

Finding your passion begins with enjoying the simple things in life. A child doesn't go to a playground and think, "Am I going to have fun today?" They just do. If you look for enjoyment in life, you will never enjoy anything.  The truth is you are already enjoying so many things in life, so take the time to become aware of these.

Myths About Finding Your Passion

That you must know what your passion is or what you are passionate about; it is in the not knowing that will give you the ability to strive and learn so that you will know. Finding your passion entails commitment to learning new things, as mentioned, as a child if you wanted to play a sport or when you came of age to drive a car, you did what you needed to do to learn what you had to in order to follow through. I never knew in my early 20s that during the course of my life I was going to be passionate about helping people become well with Naturopathic Medicine; all I knew was that I wanted to learn more about health, happiness, longevity and how to age well. So I just kept studying, something that at the time was very foreign to me, until I realized that nearly every waking moment I was fascinated with wanting to know more.

All the hard work ends when I find my passion. Wow! This couldn't be further from the truth. Once you have worked out what you want, you then have to go about to prioritize how you will achieve what you want in life, honestly, with sincerity and commitment. This is just the beginning.

Finding my passion will walk me into my dream job, relationship, lifestyle. Finding your passion begins with knowing what you want, then comes the hard part in order to achieve the things you want. You must first work for what you need in order to achieve this. There is no such thing as a dream job, partner, or life; the dream comes in the building and accomplishing your dreams with hard work, commitment, love, understanding and empathy.

Passion doesn't come easy. I am going to share with you here a little oxymoron; "Nothing worthwhile comes easy."  What makes passion difficult is not living in the moment, always looking behind or forward. An example of this is that you may well be a great writer; someone has mentioned how great your writing is and you should have it published. Instead of enjoying that moment, you think back to when someone criticized your work previously or fear the future of having your work edited.

Living in the Moment Is the True Essence of Inner Peace & Passion