When someone asks you, “what are you passionate about?” Have you thought about what that really means? Do you know what passion is to you? Passion is “an intense emotion, a compelling enthusiasm or desire for something”. Intense and compelling are the keywords describing what passion feels like. A passion is something you feel in your bones, it is what drives you and motivates you. Can you think of what gives you that intense and compelling feeling in your bones? Oprah says, “Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you”. Here are the 4 reasons to focus on what compels and excites YOU!

It’s your driving force
A passion is a driving force, something like a road map for your life. It will get you from point A to point B in this crazy thing we call life. In this society we are living in, not recognizing or acknowledging you passion can be detrimental simply because not knowing means you are allowing some other force to guide you. It is easy to get caught up in what looks good over what feel good. Allowing money, other people, etc. to become what drives you won’t lead to sustainable success. When you allow outside forces to drive you, you are setting yourself up for long term unhappiness. Money, other people, and materials can only keep you extrinsically happy and motivated for so long, but your passion is something that will bring you joy intrinsically. You will still have rough days, but knowing that you’re pursuing something with personal meaning will bring a long term happiness that cannot be purchased.

It’s your personal journey
What excites you, what gives you that feeling of intense emotion, reflects not only who you are and what you feel, but it impacts everything around you. Your entire perspective in life comes from those strong, intense feelings you have. To quote the book The Alchemist,
“When you want something, all the Universe conspires in helping you achieve it.” This will prove to be true if you are truly working toward that intrinsically compelling feeling. At some point you will realize that all things truly do work together for good, and your passion will become so much more than just a feeling, it will become a reality in which you are living, working, and enjoying daily. The universe wants to work in your favor, but you have to take the first steps.

It will help you stay focused
When you are involved in something that you wake up excited about, it makes your grind all the more worth it. You will be able to get through those late nights and early mornings, because you are working hard to build a life around something that you truly love. You can always see the difference between a person who is doing what they are passionate about versus a person who is doing something just to get by. The person who is focused on their passion, is the person you see working at 2am and being back up at 6am to continue their grind. These are the people who are rarely complaining about how tired they are, and they are most certainly never complaining about the work they are putting in, no matter how many long and tireless hours they have put in the last 72 hours. These are the people who turn out to be the Oprah’s, P. Diddy’s, and Jay-Z’s of the world because they are working from a place of passion that have led them to a greater success than they could have imagined at first.

It will be worth it
In the long run finding your passion and working through it will be rewarding to yourself and the world around you. It’s something that is already inside of you, ready to be nurtured and developed into something that will go beyond anything you can imagine for yourself. It is amazing the things that will develop as you begin to follow that intrinsic road map to success. Opportunities you would have never thought of will begin to appear and you will be fulfilled through the work you do and not just by the monetary rewards. Your personal and professional growth will flourish as you follow your passion, and you may even find you have many passions that will lead to much success on your own terms.

There’s no better time than the present to begin searching for what your true passion is and beginning to explore ways of pursuing it. Remember your passion is your personal road map to success in life. Start with asking yourself what compels and excites you?

Which person do you want to be? Do you want to be the person who wakes up every morning dreading going to work, only going for the check? Or do you want to be the person who wakes up excited to see where their passion will take them next?

[By latisha]