Difficulties in Finding Passion and Purpose

Let’s face it - we’ve all been faced with the basic, yet difficult, question in our lives:

What’s my true passion and purpose?

In a world that harps on talented individuals who seem like they have it all figured out, we find ourselves down in the dumps pondering the question above and wondering why we haven’t found our passion and purpose like many others.

As time goes on, we begin to feel even more pressed by the question, given that we often hear about the most successful entrepreneurs, athletes, media moguls, etc. claiming to have had clarity on their passions from such a young age. But for the rest of us still searching, how do we get clear on our passion and purpose and ultimately discover them?

It’s Hard Because…

Before diving on into how we can find passion and purpose, let’s take a closer look at some of the reasons why it’s so hard to discover them in the first place:

Societal Narrative / Expectations

Other’s numerous expectations and the societal narrative of how our lives should look often cloud and distort our own judgment. It’s gotten to a point where so many individuals feel paralyzed and in free-fall from even allowing themselves to think on their own through the lens of their own experience - that’s a separate discussion altogether for a different day though.

I’ll admit, and think most can agree, that some set of foundational expectations can help us all strive to be better, which helps us on course to discovering our passion and purpose. However, when we engulf ourselves so deep into these expectations, we perpetuate the underlying ideas and begin to internalize them with our own identity.

Being Skilled/Smart ≠ Passion

We often believe that you have to be good at something in order to be passionate about it. If we take the time to learn a skill or craft, we don’t want to end up finding out that we wasted our time away if we aren’t passionate about the skill or craft.

This idea is largely a misconception. There are plenty of people, including yourself, who are great at what they do, such as being an accountant, doctor, salesman, etc., but are not passionate about what they do.

How Can We Discover Passion Then?

Although it’s going to be a unique journey for everyone, here are a few techniques that can help you get started:

Make a List of Your Interests and Disinterests

it’s important to recognize that your passion will tie in with your interests. However, we often don’t take stock of our interests and disinterests, both concrete and abstract.

Take a piece of paper and pen and draw a vertical line down the middle. Write out your interests (e.g. running, writing, social justice) on one side of the line and your disinterests on the other side of the line. Make sure you cover everything as much as possible across the concrete to the abstract spectrum as possible as part of this exercise. Learn more about how integral this exercise is to carving out your career path here.

Analyze Your Interests Deeply

Now that you have your list complete, we have a starting point to getting closer to finding your potential purpose and passion! Let’s dig deeper into your interests, and disinterests, and pinpoint what exactly you like, or don’t like, about them.

For sake of example, let’s say that you love watching movies. Why do you love movies? Is it because you love to expand on your own imagination? Or is it potentially because you are passionate about seeing how to build a story from the writing, visual, audio, etc. components? Which component are you the most curious and fascinated about from the lot?

It may be weird asking yourself these questions intially, but these types of questions will help you weave through the weeds and truly get down to the root interest you have! Once you start doing this for all your interests, you’ll soon find similar patterns emerging from seemingly vastly different types of interests on paper.

Another guiding question that can help in this exercise to get to the root interest is to ask yourself:

Would I still enjoy this if you didn’t have X?

Would you still enjoy writing stories if you didn’t have more than one page to do so? Would you still enjoy writing for a technical research piece as much as a short story?

These sorts of pinpointed questions will further help you discover interests that you truly are passionate about. Likewise, it can work the other way around too to find what you really don’t like versus what you dislike but can tolerate.

Your Passion Doesn’t Have to Be Your Job

A lot of employers will probably hate me for saying this, yet deep down agree with the sentiment to a certain extent. Not everyone who finds their passion necessarily equates it to their job. On a similar note, your life is more than just your job, so your passion can be an extension of that part of your life.

The misconception is that you have to be so fervent about something and be able to make an absurd amount of money doing it in order for it to truly be your passion. That couldn’t be any further from the truth.

Passion can start out as a simple side project that brings you the fulfillment that your current job may not provide. Over the course of time, you can decide whether to be a so-called “passion pusher” who throws every atom and ounce of energy at their passion in pursuit of success, whatever that looks like and means for you personally. Or, you can choose a level of intensity that better suits you and your personal circumstances when it comes to your health, family, friends, etc. The choice is all yours, a beautiful rarity if you ask me.

No one way is better than the other, but the fact that you can decide and handle whichever route you choose ultimately comes back to the fact that you were able to find something you’re interested in and passionate about.

"Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure." — Paolo Coelho