Passion! Secrets to Finding and Following Yours
Do you remember that time as a teenager when people would ask you what you wanted to do with the rest of your life? Unless you were one of the lucky few that actually knew what career path you wanted to choose, you probably cringed at the question and mumbled something about leaving your options open.
Whilst there’s nothing wrong with leaving your options open, it’s interesting to take a look at where you have found yourself within your career and work life. Do you wake up bounding with energy, excited about the day ahead at work? Yes, I can hear you laughing and saying that nobody likes going to work, but the bills just don’t pay themselves; and I can understand your thought process. In truth though, it is possible to feel great about going to work, but so many people have been conditioned to believe that work is hard, arduous and no fun. When you find your passion and start to follow it, it’s amazing the changes you’ll feel about going to work each day.
Finding your passion. It’s such a simple statement but it conjures up so many different feelings for people.
- I still don’t know what I want to do
- I’ll never make any money
- What if I change my mind, or don’t like it anymore
- I don’t know where or how to start.
These are all very real and common fears about working with your passion, but they can also be overcome with a little perseverance. Remember that working towards any goal requires patience, persistence and a little determination.
Let’s take a moment now to look at these fears:
I don’t know what I want to do
A lot of people think they don’t know what they want to do in life, but if you look for enough clues you will be able to find something you’d like to pursue. Try asking yourself some of the following questions:
- What did I like to do as a child?
- What were my hobbies?
- What did I dream of being when I grew up – before I learnt about limitations?
- How do I like to spend my spare time now?
- What type of books or movies do I enjoy?
- What magazines do I enjoy reading?
- What community activities am I involved in; or would like to be involved in?
- What sort of lifestyle would I like to live if time and money were not limited for me?
Asking yourself these questions will help you to uncover a theme in the ways you like to spend your time. Now try to come up with a list of jobs you could do that would fit in with your themes. Have fun with this activity and let your imagination run. Keep any limiting thoughts out for now and really let yourself dream big. It’s also fun to get together with a couple of friends and do the exercise together, and then spend some time brainstorming ideas for each other.
Another fun idea is to grab a heap of magazines and start flicking through them cutting out any pictures, words or phrases that you feel draw to. Don’t worry if you don’t know why you like them, just cut them out anyway. When you’ve finished, take a look at all of your cut-outs and see what themes you can find.
I’ll never make any money from my passion
Maybe you will and maybe you won’t', but that’s still not a valid reason not to give it a go. If you really are worried that you won’t make any money from your passion, I’d encourage you to invest some time in learning about the Law of Attraction and also researching some other people that have been successful in your field. If they can do it, so can you. There’s so many great biographies out there that there’s bound to be one about someone who’s doing what you also love to do.
Following your passion doesn’t have to mean that you toss in your day job and invest every last penny you have into your new venture. Many successful businesses have been created as a small side hobby and been allowed to slowly grow. When your new business brings you in the same or more income per month as your current job for at least 3 – 4 months, then you can think about letting go of your old job. Nothing will kill your passion faster that financial stress, so allow your passion to grow slowly and naturally and I can assure you, you’ll be amazed at what you can create.
What if I change my mind or don’t like it any more?
Nobody says that your passion has to last you to the end of your days. As humans, we are constantly growing, changing and evolving and that means our interests and passions will too. This is another reason why you wouldn’t throw in your day job straight away or invest all you have in it because sometimes you do change your mind or it turns out to be different to what you’d expected. It’s okay to give things a go and it’s okay if they don’t work.
Would you rather give something a go and decide that it’s not for you, or do you want to spend the next years of your life wondering if it would be right for you? Find a way to trial your passion without having to invest all of your time and money and see where it takes you. If it lasts a few months, a few years or even a few decades, it doesn’t matter. You’ve tried it and you can move forward. Learn what you did like about it and what you didn’t and try to channel those features into your next endeavour.
I don’t know where or how to start!
Sometimes when you look at the final picture, knowing where to begin seems really difficult. Your dream just needs to be broken down into some smaller goals that you can see are actually achievable for you. Take a look at your ultimate goal and then break it down into about three or four smaller goals. Take one of those smaller goals and break that down into another 3 or 4 steps and keep going until you find that you can take the first step.
Your dream doesn’t have to be created over night and it’s okay if it takes a long time – as long as you’re still constantly moving towards it. If you break your goal right down and you’re still not sure how to start, then either start some research about it or perhaps enlist the help of a professional to get you started.
Following your passion is a real possibility for you; the first step is simply deciding what it is you want to focus on first. Secondly, create a goal that you’d like to achieve and when you want to achieve it by. Remember to keep your time frame realistic if you are working on your passion part time. Thirdly, start taking some action steps towards your dream and passion. Lastly, review your goals on a regular basis. Before you know it, you’ll be bounding out of bed each morning filled with the enthusiasm of following your passion!
By: Donna Boylen
The Worst Thing That Can Happen Is Not That You Fail!
The worst thing that can happen is not that you fail, it is that you think of yourself as a failure and give up. That is by far the worst thing that can happen and the good news is that you are in control of trying again because there are always new opportunities to try for if you look for them.
Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team and he went on to become the greatest basketball player of all time. Steven Spielberg was placed in a learning disabled class when he was in school and he grew up to become THE most respected film director alive today. JK Rowling’s Harry Potter manuscript was rejected by twelve publishing houses before eventually being accepted by a publishing house. Her books eventually set records as the fastest selling books in history! Everyone who has ever achieved something great, has had to persevere through rejections. The people who we think of as having an almost infinite amount of success, fame and fortune have been able to achieve their goals be persevering more than the average person has.
Whether we like it or not, setbacks are an inevitable part of everyone’s life. In order to achieve your goals, you must embrace moments of failure along the way. These setbacks happen to everyone and its very important for you to see them as necessary stops on the way to success. If you are one of the many people who assume that successful people don’t experience failure, read over the second paragraph a few more times because your assumption is not consistent with reality.
Everybody has moments of failure, (especially the people like Michael Jordan, Steven Spielberg, and JK Rowling) who everyone things of as being super successful in their lines of work. The difference between people who succeed at a goal and people who fail at a goal is that the successful people are willing to pick themselves and try again. Victories come from perseverance and there’s always a chance to try again. Sometimes the best way to become victorious is to take another look at the prize you are going for. Perhaps you can look for an opportunity which is slightly different from you original goal. You may even then find a whole new opportunity exists that is even better than the original one and you can put your efforts into achieving that new goal.
By: Tracey Steinberg
There Is No Someday
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
See, there is no Someday!
What are you waiting for? Tell him. Tell her. Take that trip.
Ask for what you want.
Enjoy the moments you have with the people you love. Leave them a legacy of their time with you. Live in the moment. Carpe Diem, seize the day, as Robin Williams taught his poetry students in the movie, “Dead Poets Society”. Seize the Day
There was a really sad story in the news about this apparently wonderful guy who ran a huge government agency. It seems that everyone adored him and he was great at his job, which was running the water utility in Denver Colorado. If you know about the issues regarding water in the Western United States, you will understand the magnitude of his influence and responsibility. People still go to war in the Western United States over the distribution of this scarce resource.
This gentleman, Chips Barry had announced his retirement, bought a ranch to. He also bought a tractor that was going to be needed to work the ranch. Unfortunately, just a month before he was going to retire, the tractor turned over on him and killed him.
I hope this well loved man lived his life. I hope he told those he loved how much they meant to him. I hope he was able to travel, play, learn, laugh and love the way he wanted to. He sounded like a great guy and I hope he didn’t wait until Someday to do what he wanted.
I really hope we all live our lives free of the interminable wait for Someday.
We can live for now and still plan for the future, but everything our species has learned about happiness leads us to think that living in the moment is key.
By enjoying who you are and what you experience in your relationships and in of your life, it’s easier to be happy.
No matter the words, the idea is an essential one for humans, Count your blessings.
Here are some quick tips:
1. You have got to accentuate the positive
2. Eliminate the negative
3. Latch on to the affirmative
4. Don’t mess with Mister In-Between
Remember, there is no Someday.
By: Steve Litt
Ambition – Success won’t Come without It
Ambition is a word that is used to describe the characteristic of people who go out and get what they want in life. They are the ones who learn how to bloom where they are planted. They are the ones who find a way to get to top in life, even if they start at the bottom. Though ambitious people are sometimes painted in a bad light, because of the intensity that they often bring to the table with everything they do, they possess a trait that is a valuable component of good personal development.
To lead a positive life you have to be happy, and, to be happy, most people need to have goals and a purpose for their life. Usually, people who stop having goals and desires become depressed and sedentary. Without dreams, goals, and the ambition to get there we start to lose a part of our humanity. You might have everything you need in life, but you won’t feel the positive rush of adrenaline that we all get when we conquer something that we’ve wanted to do for years, such as graduating from college or getting a good job.
Without ambition it is difficult to truly achieve satisfactory personal development success. You can’t succeed without this trait because it is the driving force behind what brings personal success. The truth is that this isn’t some magical characteristic that only certain, powerful people possess. It is something that is in us all. We just have to figure out what it is that we want bad enough to bring it out and develop our ambition.
If you want to stoke your own drive to succeed, think about all the things in your life that are important to you. Make a list of those things and take some time to meditate on what you have come up with. It may be a hobby, a business that you would like to start, a career you hope to have one day, a new house or maybe to have children. Whatever it is, if there is something on that list that you want bad enough, then go for it. That feeling, that burning in your soul to do better, that’s your ambition talking.
Though it might not, at first, be clear how you can go about getting the thing you want, you will eventually figure it out if you make it a priority. Small steps often lead to big accomplishments and you’d be surprised where some people started their journey toward the great things that they do today. For example, if you want to go to college one day, start by filling in the Financial Aid Form and see what you can get. For those who are interested in travelling, begin saving up a few dollars every week and you will find that it can grow. If you want to be a teacher you could start by volunteering at area day-cares to get experience with children.
Pretty soon you’ll start to run on ambition. The amount of personal development that you can undergo in just a short time is incredible. Before you know it, you will be leading a much more positive life, probably doing something that you love and that you never thought possible before.
The Law of Abundance – Ways to Bring Happiness Into Your Life
Happiness is something we get to choose to have in our lives. It is not something that is strictly an external effect (although if done right we can help people achieve happiness from the outside). You have the choice every day in every situation to decide if you are going to be happy or not. It does not matter what happens to you at any given moment, you can choose to be happy about it or not happy about it. I personally vote to choose to be happy as often as possible. If you implement the follow 4 steps you will be successful and bringing more happiness in your life.
Step #1: Know what makes you happy
I know this seems rather simple, if you want to be happy know what makes you happy. The point is that it is that simple. Sadly, most people do not take the time to do this basic first step. People complain about not being happy, they lament the fact they are unhappy, but they have no idea what does or would make them happy. Keep in mind happiness ultimately comes from within, but there can be effective external triggers that help. If you are struggling to manifest happiness from within then find what makes you happy outside of you and have that around you more.
Step #2: Focus on only doing things that bring you or will lead to your happiness
This is building on step #1, once you know what makes you happy then make sure you are constantly taking action every day to have these things around you. If they are things that you need to acquire, then take time and effort every day working towards acquiring these things. Remember once again that happiness ultimately comes from the inside, but by having some things around you that make you happy you open yourself up to the feeling of happiness and get more used to knowing how it feels so you can create it for yourself more often.
Step #3: Find out what makes those closest to you happy
This is the next step in being able to create happiness in your life, learning what it is that makes those closest to you happiest. This will take some effort, often you cannot learn this just by asking a couple of questions. You really have to be present, observant and watch what things create a feeling of happiness and joy in these other people. Once you know what it is that is bringing them happiness then you are ready to move on to step #4.
Step #4: Make other people happy
Once you have a clear understanding of what it is that makes those closest to you happy, then create situations in which those situations occur so they are happier more often. If hugs make them happy then give hugs, if having their dinner appreciates makes them happy appreciate their dinner, etc. Why am I focusing on making other people happy? Because when you are around happy people you naturally become happier. If you are not ready to manifest happiness from within, help others have it and you will absorb it naturally from being around them.
So ultimately the key to having more happiness in your life is learning how to create it from within. In order to learn how to manifest happiness you have to experience more happiness. If you follow these simple 4 steps you will start to experience more happiness, which will lead you to being better able to manifest it from within for yourself.
By: Sean Adams
The Law of Attraction and Your Life’s Purpose
The Law of Attraction formula is (Belief + Vision) Passion = Manifestation. The Law of Attraction brings you whatever you need for manifesting your dream once all 3 elements are in sync. This puts you in the flow.
If any of those elements is missing, you will fail to manifest because you are in conflict or some reason. The best way to stay in the flow, is to stay with your life’s purpose. There are a number of ways to do this, but we will describe the simplest way.
Finding Your Life’s Purpose:
Many teachers of the Law of Attraction, or self development, have methods of discovering your life’s purpose. I have used many, some of which cost money and some which didn’t. The reason for doing this is that when you are on your path, life/Source/Creator/God helps you out.
So, perhaps you are middle aged and have been a banker or a business middle management employee all your life. Perhaps you have a mortgage and a family to support but you aren’t happy. Do not go back to school, or quit your job to start your own business. The first thing to do is to determine your life’s purpose. This is not a complicated project but it will take some determination to go until it is done.
The first phase will be to empty all the preconceived, programmed purposes that were given to you by family members or teachers. I am reminded by the eldest daughter of a friend. Linda had many talents. When she was in high school, her art teacher kept trying to recruit her to study art, and he offered to write her letters for various schools, or to introduce her to professional artists. Linda rejected each offering as gently as she could. He finally asked her why she kept running away from a wonderful talent. She explained that she was happy to be a good artist, but that her real interest and talent was in music. She had recognized that she enjoyed art, but was passionate about music. She went on to study music as an undergraduate and graduate student, and became a well known composer in Canada, who also choreographed dance and theater pieces.
Well meaning adults attempt to influence youth. You will first need to empty these memories and programs from your mind. The process below will take care of that.
Get a few pieces of blank paper and something to write with. Find a place where you can work quietly without disturbance for an hour or two.
1) Write, “What is my Life’s Purpose?” at the top.
2) Begin to write one possibility which might be your life’s purpose.
3) Repeat step 2 and number each. The first 20, 25 or 50 or 100 answers might be from your reservoir of advice and suggestions. These will not come with any feeling attached. Keep going until you have a strong feeling. Put a star at that one because it is closer to your personal purpose. You might try variations on those themes. The one that makes you cry is the one. This is your truth.
In the past, I have been moved by purposes with several parts, and it has taken me up to an hour to get there. If this is the first time you have done this kind of exercise, it might take more than an hour. Since I have done this before, the answers with which I had an emotional connection were shorter and more direct. Most recently, my answer was three words. In my experience, the Ego is more verbose. Your intuition or higher power or spiritual mind is concise.
More on Allowing and the Law of Attraction
Once you have your life’s purpose, you know what river you need to swim in to go with the flow, or what path you need to be on. As long as you stay true to that purpose, you will be swimming downstream or walking on an easy path. Your vibration rate will be high and you will find that you are more focused and happier than you ever were before.
As with Linda above, success will be yours if you want it. As if you are on a merry-go-round, you just simply have to grab the rings as they present themselves.
This is the function of the Law of Attraction – to present those rings to you, as long as you stay on your path. If you stray, the rings will no longer appear. This will be your clue to redo this exercise and afterward to reaffirm your commitment to stay on your path no matter how many or how appealing the distractions are.
Best of luck to you.
Moving Into Greatness
Life is Good, Better, Best
Moving into greatness starts with how you view the world you live in. A good situation can be made better and a better situation can be made the best. Understanding how to move forward through this good, better, best system of thinking can help you realize the potential of any moment.
The best thing about knowing that you can make any situation better extends even in the worst circumstances. Working to improve your situation rather than fix it all at once is often the best way to move from a struggle into fulfillment and from there into greatness!
Enjoy Greatness in the Little Things
Have you ever gotten a tingle from doing something good for someone or receiving something good from someone else? It happens all the time and it is great. The problem is that we rarely take the time to recognize this greatness only because the deed seems so small. We pass it by because a “thank you” or a helping hand really isn’t that special, right? Wrong! The little things that we do for each other are the difference between good and great. If you are looking for greatness, look no further than the ways you can improve the quality of life of those around you.
Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary
There once was a man who wanted to cross a country, but he didn’t want to use a plane, or a car. He wanted to run. What made this extraordinary was the fact that this man had only one leg. His name, if you haven’t already guessed, was Terry Fox. In truth he never made it. He died before he finished. What he did do however, was inspire a nation. Every year millions of students across Canada and around the world raise money and run on his behalf.
This is a great example of how someone can turn something ordinary into extraordinary. You can do it too. All over the place people are taking ordinary events and making them have an extraordinary impact.
There is Always Room for Greatness
Remember as you go through the rest of your day, week, or month that greatness is always waiting to be found. Whether it is simply holding a door open for the next person or making room on the subway, everyone is affected when people take the time to go that little extra mile to make the difference. It’s like smiling… it’s contagious.
3 Simple But Powerful Ways On How to Stop Thinking Negatively
In life, it is inevitable to go through hardships.
That is part of life that a person has to go through in order to continue living and to become stronger.
Having said that, people tend to think negatively of life in general because of the hardships they encounter. Just like how inevitable it is to encounter these hardships, it has also become inevitable for some to have a negative view of life.
For years I was crippled with a negative and defeatist attitude that it just became the natural thing for me to do.
No one can blame someone for feeling slightly negative about life, especially if all that is happening to them make’s their life a constant struggle and a lot harder.
But continually being in this state will have a profound effect on all aspects of your life.
I did for me and mark my words, it’s no fun.
Despite it seeming impossible at times, one must remember that no matter how hard life may be, it is important to develop and keep a positive outlook. One must stop thinking negatively.
Here are some of the tips on how to stop thinking negatively.
SMILE AT THE WORLD
One must start the day positively. Upon waking up in the morning, take a deep breath and smile. Just the fact that someone has still woken up from sleep is one thing to be thankful for and one reason to not think of anything negative already.
Starting the day with a smile really helps someone. Watching yourself smiling in front of the mirror is another way of helping yourself to avoid the negative thoughts.
FOCUS ON ALL THE POSITIVES
Aside from making sure that you start your day with a smile, another way on how to stop the negative thoughts from getting into one’s life is by facing the direction where the sun shines. By this, it means that one has to pay attention with the positive things that are happening instead of sulking around because of the difficulties that one is facing.
It may sound as an overly used cliché, but seriously, looking at the brighter side of everything is helpful. By looking and concentrating on the positive things around, one can avoid seeing the shadows which makes some people look at life negatively.
Instead of focusing on the negative things which has happened to your life, try looking at the positive side of your life. Take time to pause, smile and reflect on how blessed and lucky you are for still having the chance to live your life, for having all the material things that you have and for having people around you who care about you.
GET HAPPIER WITH HAPPY PEOPLE
Another way of keeping yourself away from thinking negatively is by surrounding yourself with happy and positive people. Do not cage yourself inside your office and inside your house. Step out of your own little world and start mingling with people around you.
Join a small talk in the cafeteria with your office mates, join the game of the kids at home, let yourself laugh with your friends. Happiness is contagious, if one person is surrounded by people who love to have fun and thinks positively about life, that person will eventually adapt and become like that themselves.
A person just has to open his heart and mind to veer out from all the negativity. These are some of the ways on how to stop thinking negatively.
Negative thinking can have serious repercussions on your life. Carrying around a negative attitude really does sabotage your chances of realising all your dreams and aspirations.
By: Robert Jones
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