Society blasts us with messages telling us that focusing on our passions is vital to a happy life, and although there’s truth in it, most of the advice misses a key element:
How?
How do you find your passion?
In the hustle and bustle of daily life, we are so busy working on the things we need to do that the things we want to do often fall by the wayside. Sometimes, we’re so stressed that we don’t even remember what we love.
Never fear. We can help.
As a certified life coach, I help people rediscover their passions and find what’s missing from their lives. I can help you too.
Learn how to find your passion.
Table of Contents
What is a Passion?
How do you find your passion when you don’t even know what a passion is? The word has different meanings for different people, but here’s how we define it:
Your passion is something you love that gives your life meaning. It’s our calling, our purpose in life.
The things we’re passionate about make us excited to get out of bed and start the day. Engaging in them enriches our lives.
Our passions are so integral to our happiness that we spend our spare time engaging in them and our spare change on supplies to keep going.
How To Find Your Passion
Some of us already know what we’re passionate about. We spend our money on plane tickets to exotic locales because we have a passion for exploring, splurge on painting supplies due to our love of art, or dedicate our time to building our side business.
But others are so overwhelmed with daily responsibilities that they haven’t even had time to consider it.
We’re here to help those who’ve lost their passions in the business of daily life.
These nine tips will help you rediscover your passion, purpose, and what gives your life meaning.
Commit to a Journey of Self-Discovery
Discovering your passion is a journey of self-discovery. You’ll have to commit to doing the work, even if it’s sometimes scary.
Consider engaging in shadow work, where you deep dive through your subconscious to discover who you are at your core.
Use what you learn about yourself to consider what you want out of life. It may help you find your passion.
Consider Your Life Goals
Everyone has whimsical goals, but those “someday” goals may hold the key to your passions.
Have you ever daydreamed about writing a novel, solving a complex theory, or winning an award?
Consider what you find most appealing about the daydream, and use that as a guide towards exploring your passions.
Journal
Journaling offers numerous benefits. It keeps us organized, helps us create, and allows us to explore our innermost desires.
Your journal can also help you discover your passion. Use it to explore your hopes, dreams, and innermost desires.
Write out all your goals, from the most practical to idealistic. List the pros and cons of pursuing each goal, and pay particular attention to items that cause your heart to flutter.
Dabble
Try things. Experiment. Engage your curiosity.
Your passion may be waiting, undiscovered, in the paintbrush you never picked up, the museum you never visited, or the community event you blew off.
Dedicate time to trying things that spark an interest, no matter how small. Start painting, audition for the local theater, or say yes to that random community college class.
You won’t like all the things you try, and that’s okay. Discovering what you don’t enjoy is crucial in finding your true calling.
Read
If you don’t have time to try all the things, read about them. Pick up that book on archeology, the history of sexism, or car mechanics.
I didn’t realize my love for theoretical physics until I happened upon a random book about the multiverse – and I was hooked! I’m now learning calculus in my spare time to develop my own multiverse theory!
You never know what intriguing ideas books hold, so explore them, especially those that pique your interest.
Meditate
Meditation allows us to sit with ourselves. It helps us look deep within and reflect upon our true desires.
It also helps us clear our minds and gain a fresh perspective on our current lives. Meditation lets you shift your mindset, clarifying what you want and how to achieve it.
Spend time meditating on your passion. Let your subconscious work out what it really wants without distractions.
Explore Your Talents
Sometimes, our passions hide in plain sight. They relate to the things we’re already good at.
Consider your natural talents and abilities. Although it’s not always the case, sometimes we’re good at things because they spark a hidden interest.
Explore what you excel at and discover how and why you came into that talent. Was it something you put a lot of hard work into developing, or does it come naturally?
It might lead you to your passion.
Use Our Guide
Finding your passion takes work.
It sounds overwhelming, and finding a starting point is a challenge.
We can help. We’ve created a comprehensive guide to finding your passion, with worksheets, journal questions, mind maps, and action plans to help you find and pursue it.
The Ultimate Guide to Finding Your Passion
🌟 What’s Inside:
- 50+ Pages of Worksheets and Prompts: Thoughtfully crafted questions, exercises, and ideas to guide your self-discovery journey.
- 4-Week Passion Discovery Guide: Step-by-step guidance to explore your interests and identify your true calling.
- 4-Week Action Plan: Practical strategies to turn your passion into reality—no more dreaming, start doing!
The ultimate guide to finding your passion is an all-in-one resource to help you discover your life’s purpose.
In addition, our Ultimate Guide to Discovering Your Passion includes a 30-day action plan template to help you pursue your passion after you’ve identified it.
Head to our store to grab your copy – discover yourself and your passions today!
The guide is also available in our Etsy store, but you’ll get a slight discount by purchasing it directly through us!
Hire a Coach
If you’re still lost and overwhelmed, you can hire a coach to help guide you toward your passions.
A life coach can help with nearly any aspect of your life, from finding your dream career to discovering your true calling. They can help you uncover a passion for creativity, personal development, health & fitness or help you discover career paths you never imagined.
Coaches can help you find paths you didn’t know existed and motivate you to start your journey. They can help you realize your ultimate life goals and encourage you to pursue them.
What Does Finding Your Passion Feel Like?
How do you know that you’ve found your passion? Is there an ah-ha moment where the world falls into place, similar to love at first sight?
It’s different for everyone. Some people will know immediately, but it won’t click right away for others.
Some will be so enamored with their passion that they dedicate all their free time to it but never even consider whether it’s their passion.
Everyone is different, so discovering your passion feels different for everyone.
However, there is a sign that should make you realize you’ve found something special:
Enthusiasm
Everyone has enthusiasm for their passion, whether it’s paid or unpaid.
For example, I’ve been managing Partners in Fire for over five years, and I’ve not even come close to making what I’ve put into it.
However, I still write regularly, publish at least two weekly posts, and dedicate my free time to learning as much as possible about blogging. I devour content on SEO and practice improving my writing every day.
I dedicate time to my website daily, even if I must pay to maintain it.
I love it.
Ask yourself if there’s something you do consistently, love to do, and can’t stop doing. What do you want to do, even while on vacation? What can’t you wait to do when you get home?
Maybe you’ve already found your passion and don’t even realize it!
What if I’m Passionate About Multiple Things?
Humans are complex creatures. Many of us have multiple passions, making it hard to focus on one thing.
You may have a passion for creating, a passion for helping, a passion for something abstract, and a passion for learning.
Having multiple things that excite your passions, desires, and interests is a fantastic problem!
I recently discovered my passion for creating videos. I’ve watched over 40 hours of “How to use Blender” videos in the past three days, and it has been amazing! I’m also passionate about blogging, my cat, and helping others. All of these passions drive me in different ways.
It’s okay to have more than one passion. Explore them all and see where it takes you!
More Passions Give You More Opportunities
Having multiple passions multiplies your opportunities. It gives you a broader spectrum of ideas and opens more doors for monetizing your passions.
Often, some of the things you are passionate about overlap. I’m passionate about blogging and making videos, but I can blog about my videos or drop my videos into blog posts. I can make videos and blog posts about my cat, another passion.
When you are passionate about multiple things, you can combine them into one giant ball of meaningful work, a super bundle of passion.
Why Can’t I Find My Passion?
People often look around and wonder why they can’t find work they are passionate about or are struggling to live a fulfilling life.
Here’s the secret people don’t want you to know:
It’s not your fault.
Our capitalistic society tells us we must be passionate about our jobs and that work for the sake of work is crucial to a fulfilling life.
That myth ignores that you need money to survive, and most jobs are essential service positions.
No one is passionate about washing dishes, ringing up purchases, or answering phones in a call center.
We work those jobs because they pay the bills and are often the only jobs available in our area. You can find your passion outside work.
Your Passion Doesn’t Need to Be Your Job
The myth that the only way to pursue your passion is through landing a dream job is something that keeps people trapped in unfulfilling lives. You can’t find your passion because you’ve been sold the lie that it must be about your job.
Your passion doesn’t always need to be related to your job. You can work an unfulfilling job that gives you the time and money to pursue your passion after hours.
Although some people are passionate about their work, the idea that we must hustle and make money is toxic.
It’s okay to pursue things for the love of them rather than for the dollar behind them.
Making Money with Your Passions
Some of us want to make money doing what we love, and that’s okay, too. There’s still the traditional path of finding a job that you are passionate about, but that’s not the only path.
Instead, you can find ways to turn your passion into your own business or pursue it as a side hustle.
Starting a business is a tried and true way to follow your dreams. Those passionate about helping people may want to open a babysitting service, create help guides on YouTube, or become a life coach. Those passionate about making things can restore old furniture, sell crocheted hats and scarves, or open an online art gallery.
There are many roads to living a rich, fulfilling life.
Finding your passion gives you a map to navigate those roads.
Creative Ways to Pursue Your Passion
You don’t have to pursue your passion through your job. You can use your career to fund your passion rather than using your passion to fund your life.
For example, most people love their families. Caring for children creates meaning in many people’s lives; some parents even say their children give their lives purpose. They’re passionate about their kids.
Many people opt to work a nine to five they aren’t passionate about so they have the money and resources to care for their families outside of work. This valid choice highlights that you don’t need to make money from your passions.
However, it’s also possible to make money doing what you love if that’s what you want.
Monetizing Your Passion
You have two options for making money with your passion: working in the field (the dream job myth) and creating income by doing what you love.
Work in the Field
The traditional way to make money pursuing your passion is to find work in the field.
If you are passionate about your kids, you could find work as a nanny or babysitter that might allow you to bring your kids along. This way, you can get paid to raise your kids as you help watch other children.
Particular passions, like medicine, helping people, and scientific advances, are easier to pursue as a career than others, like raising your children or a niche hobby.
Online Opportunities
With all the technological advances of the IT revolution, creating a brand and making money sharing the things you love is easier than ever.
The internet abounds with opportunities to monetize even the most niche passions.
Become a parent blogger, YouTuber, or content creator, documenting your challenges. Highlight the greatest joys and offer advice and encouragement for the struggles.
If you don’t want to document your journey, you can make money by creating and sharing products that make parenthood easier. Consider creating sleep schedule printables, meal plans, picky eater guides, or other resources and sell them on Etsy.
The possibilities are endless.
On Getting Paid to Pursue Your Passions
Not everyone wants to turn their passion into money and for a good reason.
Would you still be passionate about it if you had to do it?
How much would you love your passion if it caused nothing but stress as you pour your all into trying to make a living income off it?
Living your passion sounds like a dream, but is that dream a nightmare in reality?
There are no right or wrong answers. Some people thrive at their dream jobs or by turning their passion into a business or side hustle.
Others are content to pursue their passion as a hobby, so they don’t have to worry about getting paid to do it.
How to Pursue Your Passion
Many “inspirational” folks will tell you to quit your job to pursue your passion.
That’s terrible advice.
Jobs and money are essential. Those who say “the money will come” are either naïve or have a safety net to fall back on. It’s not always that simple for ordinary people.
A full-time job pays the bills, and without it, how will you live, eat, and survive?
I love the idea of quitting my job to do what I love. But It’s unrealistic to just up and quit without a plan, and I’d much rather be safe and pragmatic than destitute.
So, I developed a new way to think about life and passion: Passion FIRE.
Passion FIRE
Passion Fire combines the idea of financial independence with the desire to live your dream life.
Most people’s dream lives aren’t about not working. Instead, they reflect humanity’s drive towards meaningful work. If given the choice, most people would spend time engaging in creativity, trying new things, or helping others.
The rub is that they can’t afford to pursue these interests.
So instead, they find a career path that they marginally care about or one that makes good money, like a programmer, and try to be happy. Some folks do this and live a completely fulfilled life, pursuing their passions as hobbies, which is fine.
But for many of us, that’s not enough. We want to find our life calling.
We want to devote all our time to our passion and purpose, not someone else’s bottom line. And that’s where Passion FIRE comes in.
Passion FIRE is About Designing Your Dream Life
Passion FIRE is about designing your dream life pragmatically and practically. The first step is about money because, let’s face it, we need money to survive.
Get a good job in a high-paying field and follow all the tenets of traditional FIRE – saving, investing, budgeting, etc.
But at the same time, start developing your passion. Start a business as a small side hustle, using the money you make from your full-time job to fund it.
Develop your skillset while someone else is paying you. Build your passion project to the point that you can sustain yourself with it while saving money in your rainy-day fund for the “just in case.”
Then quit your job and live off the fruits of your labor. Most people can realistically achieve this in five to ten years if they go all-in on it, and doesn’t that sound so much better than the 30-40 years you’d have to work to achieve traditional retirement?
Finding Your Passion Takes Work, But is So Worth It
Finding your passion isn’t as easy as it seems. It takes work.
But the results are life-changing.
Once you know what you love, you can plan to achieve it. You can design your life around pursuing your passions, giving you a sense of purpose and guidelines for a life of fulfillment.
Engaging in your passions is vital for your well-being, whether you decide to monetize it. Doing what you love makes you happier and helps you feel like you have a purpose in life.
Live the life you’ve always imagined by discovering your passions.