Find a job you’re passionate about and never work a day in your life.
Pursue your dreams, reach for the stars, and follow your heart.
Sound familiar?
We’re bombarded with messages telling us that focusing on our passions is vital to a happy life, and although there’s truth in it, most advice misses a key element:
How?
How do you find your passion?
We’re so busy doing what we must do that the things we love and want to do sometimes fall by the wayside. We sometimes even forget what those things even were.
The first step to living that dream life is rediscovering your passions.
Table of Contents
What is a Passion?
Passion means different things to different people. How do you find your passion when you don’t even know what a passion is?
Your passion is something you love to do. We can call it our purpose or our calling.
The things we’re passionate about are the things that 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 productivity due to our desire to succeed.
But others are so overwhelmed with daily responsibilities that we haven’t even had time to consider it.
How do you find your passion, your purpose, the thing that gives your life meaning?
Here are some tips to help you discover your passion.
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.
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.
Also See: 200+ Epic Ideas for Your Bucket List
Journal
Journaling offers numerous benefits. It keeps us organized, helps us create, and allows us to explore our innermost desires.
Use a journal to explore your hopes and dreams.
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
You may not have discovered your passion yet because you haven’t had time to try it.
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.
Try things. Experiment. Engage your curiosity.
It’s okay to try something and not like it. Discovering things you don’t enjoy is crucial to finding your true passion.
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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.
Explore Your Talents
Do certain things come naturally to you?
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?
Your passion may be hiding in plain sight.
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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, available on Etsy.
The Ultimate Guide to Finding Your Passion
Our guide to finding your passion is a 50+ page worksheet bundle designed to guide you along your journey of self-discovery.
It includes carefully crafted journal questions that will help you think about what you really want out of life, worksheets to help you brainstorm options, action plan templates, and more.
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 my Etsy store to grab your copy and discover yourself and your passions today!
Hire a Coach
If you’re still lost and overwhelmed, you can hire a coach to help guide you toward your passions.
You have two coaching options: career coaching or life coaching.
A career coach will help you find a career aligned with your passions. If you’re obsessed with the idea of a dream job and want to earn your keep by doing what you love, hire a career coach. They can help you discover career paths you’ve never imagined and open new doors for making your day job something you’re passionate about.
A life coach is more holistic. They can help you uncover a passion for creativity, personal development, or health and fitness. Life coaches can help you discover ultimate life goals you never considered.
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 just 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.
Enthusiasm
The one thing that everyone has in common, though, is their 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 love it.
I dedicate time to my website daily, even if I must pay to maintain it.
Ask yourself if there’s something you do consistently, love to do, and can’t stop doing.
Maybe you’ve already found your passion and don’t even realize it!
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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 okay.
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 and my cat and helping others.
It’s okay to have more than one passion. Explore them all and see where it takes you!
More Passions Give Your 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.
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 your passion has to 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.
Read Next: The US’s Obsession with a Toxic Work Culture
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 gave 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.
Monetizing Your Passion
The dream for many of us is still to make money doing what we love.
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, and document your challenges as a parent. 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.
Also See: 20 Hobbies That Will Legit Make You Money
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 to this. 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 don’t include not working at anything.
Most people are passionate about creativity, want to try new things, and wish to engage in meaningful work. 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 tenants 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.