3 Simple Steps To Help You Find Your Passion

The very reason I started Startup Creative was to follow my passion. I was so sick and tired of devoting myself to a career that didn’t excite me. I dreading waking up in the morning and had a terrible knot in my stomach when I walked through the office doors every day. It sounds so cliche, but I often found myself thinking ‘what the hell am I doing with my life?’  I was no longer my typical bubbly self, I had no time for my friends or family, my health was suffering and I simply wasn't enjoying my life. I knew I wouldn't last much longer like this and deep down something in me knew that I had to be the one to change.

I believe that at the end of the day when you sit with yourself long enough to reflect on your life, you will see that everything in your life that you don't like or want is a only there because you have allowed it to be there. So if you have chosen a life that you don't enjoy, now is the time to actively choose the life you REALLY want… a life full of passionate purposeful living that inspires you and the people around you.An average person will spend somewhere between 1300-2000 hours a year working, which equates toroughly one third of your life. With this in mind, take a moment to think to yourself, are you prepared to dedicate one third of this precious lifetime doing what you do? If your answer is no, now is as good a time as any to make a choice to follow your passion.

“You are the master of your destiny. You can influence, direct and control your own environment. You can make your life what you want it to be.”

— Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich

The first and hardest step is to allow yourself to dream of the possibility of making your life what you want it to be. Here are 3 simple steps you can take to work out what is it that you are truly passionate about and how to make it a reality.

“If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.”

— Marc Anthony

1. Ask.  In a world filled with noise and distractions, I challenge you to take 5-10 minutes out of your day to sit by yourself, without a phone/computer/ tablet or music. Sit with yourself and ask yourself, if I could wake up tomorrow and get paid to do absolutely anything, what would I do? You might like to write your answer down. At first it might sound unrealistic, weird or even embarrassing, that’s ok, whatever you do don’t dismiss your deepest desires no matter how crazy they might sound. If you don't even allow yourself to dream it, how will you ever achieve it?  (click here for more questions you might like to ask yourself)2. Break it down. A goal as scary as chasing your passion and leaving the comfort of what you’ve always known is bound to make you feel a little queasy in the tummy. The trick is to break the goal down into baby steps, numbers and achievable tasks. Start with the big goal and work backwards to give yourself an achievable timeline and don’t feel like you have to jump off the deep end straight away.  What is one thing you can do today to take you closer to your dream? (i.e My goal is to be a full time artist. Something I think I can do today to achieve that goal is to take an art class or invest in art supplies or submit my art to a gallery).3. Take action in 3 days. After you have allowed yourself to dream of what you really want, and you’ve come up with some simple and achievable steps you can take to get you there, you have 3 days to do something about it. Your brain is wired to focus on the negative, it was how we were created to survive our hunter and gatherer days. This means that within days you will start to talk yourself out of it , convince yourself it can’t be done and start feeding and believing a bunch of excuses as to why now isn't the right timing for you. My advice, do it anyway. Fear and doubt will come hard and fast, it always does no matter what leg of the journey you are on. The best way to combat it is to take action, keep your list of baby steps close and keep moving in the direction of your goal, one day at a time. Eventually your list will be filled with bigger and more ambitious tasks to take on and that is how you find yourself doing what you truly love.Don’t forget to be gentle on yourself along the way. It is a long road ahead and it will be filled with many ups and downs, twist and turns, wins and losses. Keep it mind it is a life you are designing and success will come if you are brave enough to take the risk.