Passion

 

‘Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion.’

-George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

 

‘Chase your passion, not your pension.’

-Denis Waitley

 

‘You never achieve success unless you like what you are doing.’

-Dale Carnegie

 

Passion.  What a great, positive, emotion generating, word and concept.  We all intuitively know that we want to live a life full of passion.  We all want to spend our time doing things for which we are passionate.

 

But for most of us, putting this concept into practice is pretty darn tough.  For some, it may be difficult to identify what exactly it is that you are passionate about.  Maybe there are things you really enjoy, but you aren’t sure how you could spend more time doing them, or even if they are truly your passion.  For others, you know the things that you are passionate about, but you are dealing with your current reality of obligations and responsibility.  You just don’t see how your passion can play a larger role in your life.

 

For that first set of us, it is often much easier to identify the absence of passion, than it is to identify what you are passionate about.  Use this to help you to identify your passion.  If you are not excited to face your day, ask why not?  Is something missing?  What would make you excited to face your day?  Whatever you do, do not discount your thoughts as silly as they may seem.  Nothing is impossible.  Sometimes we learn a lot about what we do want, about our passions, through experiencing what we don’t want.

 

Now, for those of you that know your passion, but just can’t seem to find a way to incorporate it into your life, I pose a question.  This one cuts right to the chase.   I learned this from John Assaraf, in his book, ‘The Answer’:

               

‘How will you spend your life?’

 

This is a sobering realization.  You are spending your life.  It is a finite resource that you are choosing to spend.  Are you going to choose to spend your life full of passion? Or spend your life always waiting to someday spend time on your passion? 

 

If something out there excites you, try it.  If you can’t get a certain challenge out of your head, do it.  For some of you, a big change is the only way to add passion, for others it might be trying something small.  No matter what, incorporate what you are passionate about into your life.  There is no success without passion.

 

 

Kyle C. Ryan