“Do what your heart says and follow your passion”. Something that we have all heard and told other people and yet, we never understood the real meaning of it. Most often, people confuse passion with ambition or a dream that they want to achieve. I know this for a fact because, I used to be one of those people. Finding your passion is important as it is a part of who you are.

What Is My Passion And How Do I Find It?

The word ‘passion’ is so overused that it lost its original meaning along the way. Passion is not an entity or something materialistic. It is an emotion, a desire to do whatever it takes. It is not a career choice or a job that you would want to pursue.

Meaning, for instance, you cannot be passionate about medicine or politics or any subject in particular. If you are passionate about helping others, you then choose to be a doctor or a social worker. That desire to help people (which is your passion) motivates you to choose a career option (or your ambition) that will allow you to do that.

Now that you have a different perspective on what passion means, here are some hacks that will help you discover your passion (If not, atleast reduce the number of options in your head)

1. Discover The Pattern

If you are passionate about something, chances are you would have already shown certain signs for it. Maybe you were a member in one of those school clubs that focused on something in particular, that you wanted to work on. Or, you made time everyday to do a specific task that challenges and motivates you.

How do I Find The Pattern?

Passion is what drives you and defines you. To discover yours, do this simple exercise. Write a note of all the goals, ambitions and career options you have in mind. See what characteristics or profile they have in common.

Let me share my exercise analysis with you. When I was really young, I wanted to be the president of my country. Through middle and high school, I wanted to be a scientist. When I was in college, I wanted to be a motivational speaker.

Now, this does not mean that I had three different passions. I just had one. If you look closely, all these profiles had one thing in common. They do something that makes a difference and has an influence on the people. That is my passion. I am passionate about doing something that brings about a change. Whether it is writing content that influences people or donating for a cause that makes a difference, I ensure that I do whatever it takes to get it all done. And the only reason I am driven with so much energy is because I am extremely passionate about it.

2. Process Of Elimination

To discover a pattern, you need a series of options. But what if you did not have that many goals and ambitions growing up? How do you find the pattern? Well my friend, you can still do it. When we answer multiple choice questions, we use two techniques. We either find the right answer or we eliminate the wrong ones. Just apply the same technique here.

How do I get started?

If you don’t know what your passion is, know what you are not passionate about. You can try different activities, internships, workshops and participate in as many events as you can. This will help you understand what interests you and what doesn’t. You will also have the opportunity to engage with a bunch of people from different cultures, financial and professional backgrounds, who will tell you about the challenges they face and what fuels them to hustle harder. This helps you choose and eliminate options from the list on your head.

3. Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone

If you are searching for something and can’t seem to find it, it probably isn’t in the zone you are looking in. The reason why most people take so long to figure out what they are extremely passionate about is because, they only look at the options within their reach and requires minimal effort. To know what options are out there, you need to take risks, explore more and break out of your comfort zone.

How I broke out of my comfort zone

Like I mentioned earlier, I wanted to be a motivational speaker who travels to different places and meets new people. But here is the irony. Up until high school, I was known to have stage fright. My friends would deliberately put my name in the participant list of various stage events and I would cry my way out of it. This made some people do it more often, just to witness my dramatic reactions.

This went on for a while until one day, I was cast as Mahatma Gandhi for one of the school plays. I could not get out of it due to the time constraint that the school had. Not knowing what to do, I decided to just go with it. (Also, I wanted to prove people wrong, so..… Muahahahah * insert evil laugh *)

Long story short, the play went well and I realized that I actually loved being on stage, capturing everybody’s attention. In college, I took up every opportunity that involved a stage presence, from taking presentations to debating. I was finally passionate about something.

That is how you know. When you love the feeling of constantly working and getting consumed by it all day. When you would sacrifice leisure time and parties to work on your passion. When you don’t hit the bed, unless you’ve done what you planned on doing. 

4. Reach Out To The World

So, you tried the first three options and are still clueless. You are getting desperate and need to start somewhere. What can you do? Well, desperate times call for desperate measures. It is time for you to go silly.

Have you seen those ‘Find your passion’ quizzes online? Just take one of those (The more the better). These quizzes ask you questions about your lifestyle, your preferences, your likes and dislikes and they give you an automated report. Have a look at it and see if you can relate.

Else, ask your friends to guess what they think your passion is. From what they know of you, they might be able to answer, or atleast make a wild guess. Understand what they have in mind and give it a shot. Who knows, it might be the one and only.

These were some of the things that I did when I was clueless about my passion. I hope they help you discover your true calling as well. Just remember, it is not the ambition you have in life. It is what you will sacrifice comfort and strive hard for. In other words, passion is the pathway to ambition.

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