This article is the first part of the series on how to find your passion. I invite you to embark on a journey of rediscovering yourself through connecting to your deep desires.
So, let’s kick off our passion conversation with a question: who did you want to become when you were little?
Here’s my fascinating story.
As usual, you’ve got options: you can watch the whole thing right here or just keep reading.
When I was a little boy, I wanted to be a pilot. Despite most of my friends wanted to become doctors and save lives, I never questioned my dream nor did I think it was somehow smaller than other kid’s dreams. I just remember “flying” around the apartment holding a toy plane in my hand and being the happiest kid in the world.
Years later, when it was time to go study at the university and choose my future profession, guess what happened? I went to study…economics! That’s right. Childhood dreams were abandoned and I went onto pursuing a profession that’d “always provide me with bread and butter”, as my father put it.
And he was right. While still being a student, I got a bank job and became financially independent. There was only one little problem: after a few months of working in cubicle nation my days got monotonous, I stopped learning new things and often felt bored. It became evident that the work that was keeping me busy was not my life’s work.
I started wondering if there was more to life. I was dreaming about doing something special, something that I’d love, something I was born to do and be outrageously successful at it. I knew there were people actually living like that, I just didn’t know what my special thing was and wasn’t really asking myself that important question, how to find my passion?
If you ever felt like that, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
So may people out there are trying to figure out what it is they want to do with their life. The good news is that if we understand what prompts us to a place of boredom and dissatisfaction, we can turn this around.
Let’s dig deeper.
When I talk to people about their big dreams all too often I hear something like “I gotta be real” as a reason not to plan on becoming the best version of themselves. But were you always that “real”? I, certainly, wasn’t (remember the pilot story). I didn’t care how “real” it was, I just loved flying.
Here’s the thing: “realness” as a limiting force is a result of conditioning.
Daniel Gilbert, a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, calls this “nexting”. He says that our brain works as an anticipation machine, adding the past to the present to create its concept of the future. And all of that happens without the need to engage conscious thought.
Now, what does that mean for us? Ultimately, it means that we condition ourselves through giving interpretations to different events that happen to us. Particularly, when bad things happen, we can become guarded, closed up, apprehensive and stop trying new things because every time our brain recognizes similarity, our own imagination trips us up by reinforcing a concept of what’s going to happen and anticipating that negative event that we’ve been through before. That’s how we limit ourselves. We stop dreaming and wishing for more because of those interpretations that we previously created while going through negative experiences.
The good news is that there are some pretty simple steps you can take to start connecting to your deepest soul cravings. This knowledge is the foundation for discovering your passion which is essential to feeling fulfilled and happy.
For most of us passion is a blend of discovery and creation. We’ll cover both but for now let’s focus on the discovery part because first you need to figure out what brings you true joy.
Think of a cabbage. Your passion is the core and it’s hidden under those layers of leaves, that represent which all of the past experiences and conditioning.
And what does conditioning do to us? It keeps us disconnected, living in an imaginary world of perceptions and interpretations, deep in our heads and away from our hearts. And that’s exactly where the problem is rooted.
You see, passion is about authenticity. And most people’s authenticity is hidden under those layers that get in the way.
Exercises to Help you discover your passion
Here are a couple of simple exercises to help you loosen up and start connecting to your deep desires.
1. Conscious Breathing
Make it into a practice to slow down and take a few conscious breaths. It can be even one conscious breath.
What does conscious breathing mean? It means you give your full undivided attention to the act of breathing. You can follow the air and notice that it enters through the nostrils and fills up your lungs. And then exhale through the nose or through the mouth. Doesn’t really matter as long as you are present. Try to take full breaths but don’t force it, just breath in and out, let it flow.
2. Permission to Dream
Another simple thing you can do is to give yourself permission to dream. Infinitely, unreasonably, boldly.
You can journal about your dreams, or share them with your friend, or just lay on the couch and fantasize. Let your imagination run wild and don’t censor it.
Now, there is one important refinement. The dreaming I’m talking about is not a random act. Think of it as a fun practice. Ideally, you should have a designated time, for example, journal every morning for 20 minutes upon awakening or spend 10-15 minutes when you go to bed at night.
You can use this question to spark your imagination: wouldn’t it be cool if? And then see what comes up.
Right now that’s all you need to do. We need to flex those dream muscles in order to take it to the next level.
Now, take some time to reflect on a couple of questions.
Who did you want become as a kid? And did you follow your dreams?
XO,
Peter
Once you’ve finished working through the exercises, move onto How to find your passion, Part 2 to continue the journey of rediscovering yourself and connecting to your deep desires.
