Discovering your true passion

In my previous post, the science and secret of becoming wealthy, I had mentioned that the first and foremost determinant was knowing one’s true passion. Since then I had felt that it needed much more to be said. Further I received quite a number of emails asking me how we can find out our true passion. This is how we can: 

1. Commitment: It shall take a strong commitment. It is not a one off emotional decision. It is not an act taken under mood swing. It concerns you. It concerns your every thing that you are or stand for or shall stand for. It concerns the entire of you: your financial earnings, your personal satisfaction from your career, your relationship with family, your quality of life, your every thing. So it surely deserves a serious effort to know where your natural interest lies or what you are truly passionate about. If you would not make an effort to know your true self, who else will? You have to be seriously committed to discover your true passion.

Do one thing: take out a pen and paper or a notebook preferably, which you can place some where it does not get lost. Write  on its first page: my true passion and whatever starts to come in your mind, write that down. Do not filter it. Do not edit it. For a while just leave all your sensibility aside. If you think you are passionate about wood work, write it. If you think you love to watch whales for hours, write it. The rule is:  Just write it. Whatever it is…….

2. Decide to love yourself: Tell yourself again and again and again that you love yourself. Understand the following: Any thing we love, we value it. Anything we value, we consider it be of time worthy. We  spend time on it. Any thing we spend time on begins to shine. Its simple, yet very few of us understand this.

Tell yourself that: You love yourself. You value yourself. You won’t let yourself go waste. You would make use of your true potential. To make use of your true potential you would have to find it first. To find your true potential you woud have to spend time on it.  Tell yourself that you would spend some solid time to find what you love doing. Even if it shall take 59 years to discover it, out of a life of 60, it is worth it. The good news is, it wont take 59 years. Not 59 months. Not even 59 days. May be 59 hours. It all depends on you.

Do you genuinely love yourself? Do you consider your whole life worthy enough to spend serious 59 hours to dedicating how you shall be spending it?

3. Detect what you like doing so much you lose sense of time: This is a very simple rule. Do you do some thing that when you are doing, you forget to watch  your watch?  Though while watching a james bond movie, or at playstation we often lose sense of time, but by doing I meant some thing that involves your sense of work. While watching movies or playing tv games our sense of work is not involved and the balance between growth and being easy is more shifted towards being easy.

4. Know what you like reading most about? Do you often find yourself in front of a particular section of a book store or do you have a certain list of websites added to your favourites folder? Does your eye keep on looking for a particular sign board whenever you go out? What is it that you read and don’t feel bothered to go on after a dozen pages. Or what is it that you start to read about and do not leave unless you are finished with the article.

5. Your memory is an indicator:  In my university days, we had a fellow who had always a difficulty in remembering digits or numbers or calculation formulas. Once he came up to us very excited and bursted out with joy that he had found out the telephone digits of a very pretty girl he had a crush on. “How did you do that? Did you ask her?”, a friend asked. “No, I just was moving in the corridor  where she was standing and was telling her digits to her friend and I overheard those”, replied he with a big grin. “How could you hear those in  such a loud noise of students chatter, echoing sounds of doors shutting and closing and  the sound of foot steps all while you were moving at your normal walking pace?” ” I don’t know. I just did”, he grinned again.

He definitely did not have a memory problem with digits, but an interest problem with the subject he had opted to major in. If you can remember some thing very easily without an effort, its a big clue that you may have an intrinsic interest in that. 

6. What does not make you tired even after hours of doing? Or what is it that you feel so easy and interesting to talk about?  Find it out, there may be many things. You are the best judge. You know what is that which you can take forward as your career.

7.  What makes you real creative? Creativity is a result of multiple of mental states of which the most important is called relaxed-alertness. We are relaxed yet alert, without a grain of stress. Some thing that we are naturally good at doing triggers this state much frequently and we find so many things coming to our mind at an enormous pace. Our brain is working at a throttle. Creativity at doing some thing is a big sign. Do not ignore it.

8. You do not care what you get in remuneration? You would do it any way because you find growth in it. You love to do it and you feel a sense of eternal joy doing it. Remuneration is ok if it comes in but some times even if you have to do without it, you would still do it.

9. No fear of failure: You do not fear what if you don’t make it. Your natural ability makes you glide at doing it. Your true potential makes it much easy for you while its quite difficult for many others. You do not even think you can fail. 

The Rating Key:  Make a simple chart consiting two columns. In the first column write the above 9 criteria and in the column next to it use digit 1-5 (1 for minimum and 5 for maximum liking). If you make a  score above 36 it is considerable. If you make above 40, it is wow. Scoring a 45 would be a beginning of a transformation and you can stand among the elite of the elitest: those who know what their true passion is.

Be persistent: You might have to repeat this exercise several times. Some times you would get bored and disinterested. Some times you would think whats the big deal? Some times you would think about yourself having gone crazy. At times you would tell yourself: “its all plain bookish!”

The process of growth is always difficult and hard. The process of pushing your mind to think new thought is always difficult. Our mind resists in all possible ways using all tools it can to distract us. Use your higher conscious self to take control of it.

You have to do this till you have given a loud and clear message to your mind that no matter what trick your mind plays you shall not deter and not back off from this exercise. When your mind has understood this message, it would stop resisting and shall start to find every means possible to support you achieve what you were looking for.

You would find your few interests changing over time, while some other few as never changing or constant. Stay committed to discover your true passion. It is like chocolate, you only know how does a chocolate tastes after you have tasted it. You would know if you have discovered your true passion, only after you have discovered it. It is worth it.