Work Where Your Passion Is
October 29, 2006
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or by Email.
Thanks for visiting!
I’ve been doing quite a bit of introspection these days. It’s not that I’m narcissistic or anything. I just keep hearing folks say over and over again that you will be most successful career wise if you work where your passion is.
The part that I’m struggling with is the whole part about where my passion really lies. That may sound pretty dumb to most of you. But the truth is I am good at a bunch of different things. I enjoy a variety of stuff. And I tend to get passionate about things for relatively short bursts of time before I move onto the next thing.
I think my whole struggle drives my wife a bit nuts.
I can imagine her thinking, “Here we go again,” whenever I get on the topic. I mean just last night we had another one of those “I don’t know what I want be when I grow up” conversations. Oh, and I’m nearly 40. Sheesh!
The good news is there are some folks who are offering up some practical ideas and techniques to get through a barrier like mine. I thought I’d share a couple links that I’ve found that help me out since I’m struggling here. Who knows? Maybe some of you are struggling with this too.
So here are the links:
By far the most practical advice that lays out a step by step process to work through this that I’ve ever seen was laid out by Brian Kim in his post back in July called How to Find What You Love to Do. I just found the post a couple days ago and I am working through the steps he laid out now (I’ll let you know how it goes.)
Tony Clark over at Success From the Nest has some practical ideas on how to find something worth working for. Click through the link to the post at Lifehack on Why Work? It is definitely worth the time to read those questions and ponder them.
Oh, and it looks like Chris Johnston had an epiphany with his post The Paycheck vs The Life. Congratulations Chris! That’s the sort of thing we all could use in our own lives.
Ultimately we will achieve much more success when we work at something we are truly passionate about. Passion has the power to overcome any obstacle that life throws up in our way. Passion can fuel us to work harder than we ever thought we would and still leave us feeling like we hardly worked at all.
So many of the masses of mediocrity stay at jobs they hate just to get a pay check instead of doing the things they are most passionate about and were created to do. And then they wonder why they don’t ever see success.
Find your passion. Pour your all into it. Achieve ridiculous success!
Enjoy!
Popularity: 6% [?]
Tags: Finance, Motivation, Passion
Aloha Chris, thank you for these pointers. I’ve been to Tony’s place, and will be sure to read through the articles offered by Brian Kim and Chris Johnston too.
I think you are very fortunate that you enjoy a variety of stuff and feel you are good at them; there’s an abundance factor in passion and no one says it need be directed to only one thing! I can see you are a talented writer, and a generous blogger, and I shall look forward to reading more of what you offer here; much passion on display!
Chris I am quite confident that the work destined to rock your world will become known to you soon, for thus is the intention you are putting forth, and there is much to be said for that dliberance. And who knows, you may have already found the what it is, and just need to refine the how it’s best done at your terms.
A hui hou, (Until the next time) Rosa
Rosa, Your words are a cool breeze on a hot summer afternoon. Thanks so much for your encouragement. I think I may have to brush up on my Hawaiian, though!
Hey Chris,
The part that I’m struggling with is the whole part about where my passion really lies . . . the truth is . . . passionate about things for relatively short bursts of time before I move onto the next thing.
Looks to me that your passion is a coat of may colors. You wear it well.
Carolyn
many colors
I don’t know, Carolyn. I kinda like “may colors”.
Now if I can just figure out how to turn my short attention span into a bankable asset!
Hi Chris – The fact that you’re actively searching puts you laps ahead of many. Keep in mind - you don’t have to settle for one passion. I myself have a few. Maybe you’re what Barbara Sher call a Scanner (or a Renaissance man). Many great entrepreneurs are. It took me a while to embrace my short attention span as a strength, rather than fight it as a liability.
Tony, I’m just working on a way to turn that short attention span into an asset. I tend to be extremely focused - until I move on to the next thing.
Tony: great idea to work with it rather than fight it. Fight what, again?
Chris: if I’d written that comment as a poem, ‘may colors’ would have fit perfectly.
I share your pain brother. I know everyday what it feels like and my wife reacts the same way. I was reading the e-book “Inside Facebook” and there was link to the blog that the original post I referenced in “The Paycheck vs Your Life” was on. I suddenly realized where I was supposed to be and what I was supposed to be doing. I also know that I may realize something different a few months from now. I also deep in my heart have a burning urge to go to Law School. This is not just a passing fad but a deep burning desire. I know most people hate lawyers, that is until they need one and then they want the best one. I might just go to law school at the same time. Or go earn so much in the next five years that I am retired at 39 and I can go to law school with no pressure.
Thanks again for the reference and I’ve added you to my blogroll.
[...] Chris Cree over at SuccessCREEations brought up this really great point in his comment on Friday’s post, and in his follow-up post on his site: The part that I’m struggling with is the whole part about where my passion really lies. That may sound pretty dumb to most of you. But the truth is I am good at a bunch of different things. I enjoy a variety of stuff. And I tend to get passionate about things for relatively short bursts of time before I move onto the next thing. [...]
Chris, I entertained the idea of law school - very briefly. I liked the possibility of a lucrative career. But not much else. It was sort of like my time in the Navy. I mostly liked the flying part.
Like Tony said in his post today us multi-passionate Chris’ just need
[...] I think my column fell short last week for you, and I need to thank Tony Clark and Chris Cree for the help they gave me in salvaging it. —Tony wrote: What are you Working For? and —Chris wrote: Work Where Your Passion Is, and then —Tony wrote: Why Settle for Just One Path? which (I’m guessing) may have inspired —Chris to do this: Contemplating a Bit of a Course Change [...]
Chris-n-Chris, I’ve found Jim Stockdale’s advice for surviving in the “Hanoi Hilton” in Vietnam to be most effective in dealing with the passion-less day job. He said, “You must never confuse the faith that you will prevail in the end - which you can never afford to lose - with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”
For me, the brutal facts of reality our my financial responsibilities to my family. I no longer speak out loud in my home of ideas and desires to work at something I love, with passion. I had transcended from the wife rolling her eyes to the wife packing weapons due to foolish attempts to escape from the day job that thru our family into financial hardship. But I’ll never give up trying and believing it can happen!
Dave, I agree that it can happen. I’m kinda coming out of a place near where it sounds like you are at. I found that changing the way I framed my thoughts and my words on the subject has helped me a lot.
Now instead of wishing I could find something to work at that I was passionate about I started asking myself questions. How can I find work that I’m passionate about? What could I do that I’d feel passion for? And the kicker, What am I passionate about?
I figure by refining and working in the direction of my passions, the money will follow eventually. Obviously I haven’t quit my day job while I work through this!
My wife would not appreciate the bills not getting paid!
[...] Things really started to come together a couple weeks back when I wrote Work Where Your Passion Is. The resources I had found, and the discussion that post generated was really a catalyst for change here. [...]
[...] Because if you Work Where Your Passion is, it will feel a little less like work, and your motivation will be higher even when you are burning the midnight oil that is often required to achieve success. [...]
work place motivation…
I found it very useful. Thanks for the knowledge. I am personally trying to follow the advice & try to be independent….
I agree. I think everybody needs to find what they can be obsessed about, and if you can make a career out of it, you’re one of the lucky ones.
Shaun
Kind words can make a difference. Flowers can make an impact.