Have you started on your personal mind-map yet? Mind-mapping isn’t the only way to discover your purpose. It’s just something I found useful. I recently saw a post on Steve Pavlina’s blog about "How to Discover Your Life Purpose in About 20 Minutes". He introduced an alternative method that involved listing. Check it out if you’re interested. Of course, there are still plenty of methods out there. Find one that’s effective for you, and feel free to share with me by leaving a comment. Let’s put this aside for a while and talk about passion today.
Where Does Your Passion Lie in?
To answer this question, ask yourself this:
Assume that you are extremely rich, and money is of no concern to you. Given also that whatever you choose to do, you will not fail. What will you do for free?
For me, music is my passion. I love to sing and perform for others. Hence, I would start a music cafe, putting in a lot of effort to make it the best music cafe in Singapore ever!
If you have talked to older people with rich life experiences, they’ll all tell you the same thing – follow your heart. I’ve seen many people who have pursued careers they have no interest in. Some have worked hard in the same company for years. They’re sick of the job, long for a career switch, but lack the courage to do so. Switching jobs means starting all over again, and giving up their current salaries and lifestyles. It’s a tough choice for them.
Also, these people aren’t happy because they aren’t being honest with themselves. Think about it. It takes additional effort to do something that you dislike, especially when it’s for 260 days a year (based on a five-day work week)! It’s really draining. When your job saps so much energy out of you, it’s no wonder that you aren’t happy.
Don’t put yourself in that situation. Think of how you can get yourself out! Start all over with your passion.
Still Can’t Find Your Passion?
Okay. Suppose you still can’t figure about what’s your passion. Remember the mind-map in my post on goal-setting? The sub-topic on interests? Expand on it! You may find your true passion among your interests! Passion is an interest at a level off the Richter scale.
Live Your Dreams!
Just imagine how great it is to have a job you are passionate about! You’ll have all the motivation you need to excel in what you do. Every minute of your work will seem like leisure time to you! Just look at some of the famous sports people who enjoy what they do, like Michael Jordan and David Beckham. To summarize, here’s what you can do: 
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Some say passion is overrated!! Sometimes passion cannot pay the bill. Maybe a more realistic model can be to find a job that revolves ard your passion, that would at least provide some motivation to work haha.
For example if u like performing and singing, but u think being an artiste is not realistic, opening a music cafe can be an option. However that requires a different set of skills altogether and managing a cafe may not be your cup of tea at the end of the day. So i think we need to be flexible with this passion thing and everybody shld find their way of discover what is best for them. (I still believe in passion though)
Hi buddy! Thanks for visiting my blog. Yes, I agree with you when you say that managing a cafe may not be your cup of tea at the end of the day. And I’ll like to elaborate on this point too.
If you are someone who loves performing and singing, you have the right mindset (passion, attitude etc) and you finally manage to open a music cafe, but you still prefer to just perform and sing, you can do just that. And find someone else to help you manage your business. How does that sound?
I’ve read a couple of Adam Khoo’s books (he’s a Singapore-brand millionaire) and I’m a fan of his. In one of his books, he mentioned how he’s not so into managing businesses and he often left that portion to his business savvy partner to do it. He does the curriculum. I think it’s an excellent approach.
I’ll be elaborating on this point in my future posts.
Great comment about motivation
i enjoy your style of writing
Thank you!
I like the first point you made there, but I am not sure I could reasonably apply that in a positive way.
The first point helps to identify your true passion. By assuming you are very rich and you will not fail, you first remove the limiting beliefs you have on yourself. And you establish a new belief – you ABSOLUTELY can succeed.
To apply this, I’ll give an example. Say you’ve always been an engineer, but your passion lies in starting a healthy food business. With a success mindset, you start to list out the problems, and FOCUS on the solution.
This might be a typical list of problems and the corresponding solution:
- Lack of capital -> Find partners, look for government funding.
- Lack of knowledge in healthy food -> Do research, discuss with a health practitioner friend.
- Not sure how to market your business -> Recruit experienced marketers, learn the ropes yourself
- … and so on
Problems become possibilities. Possibilities become reality. I’ve tried it in smaller aspects of my life, and it works for me! Hope that helps!
Awesome post this will help me!
Sad news about David Beckham. Wish he has a quick return to full fitness.
Weird , your article shows up with a grey hue to it, what color is the primary color on your site?
Haha. It’s white. The grey hue is due to the texture of the theme I used.
Thank you! Your encouragement keeps me going…
Interesting , how would I make use of this?