Practical tool: How to discover your passions

We can all become passionate about something but to discover your passions you have to allocate time, energy, and maybe other resources.

“Passion” is a word that we all know the meaning of but when we have to describe it, we all get stuck when trying to say out loud the meaning of passion.

There’s a study from 2007 that provides two directions for passion:

• The first one, a harmonious type of passion that originates from an autonomous internalization of the activity – it leads people to choose to engage in the activity that they love;
• The second one, an obsessive type of passion that originates from a controlled internalization – it leads people to experience an uncontrollable urge to engage in the activity.

An example of the first one could be represented by the passion for listening to music. An example of the second one could be represented by the obsession with buying a car. In both cases, there’s an internalization that’s connected to something we like.

The study from 2007 is called “On the Psychology of Passion: In Search of What Makes People’s Lives Most Worth Living”.

I invite you to check the whole study as it discusses more the concept of passion, the impact of passions on psychological and physical health, and its connection to relationships and performance.

When it comes to the difference between the two types of passion, the harmonious one leads to more adaptive outcomes than the obsessive one. And that’s what we’ll focus on with this tool.

The purpose of this tool is to help you discover the harmonious passions that you could have in your life.

We’re living in a world where to discover your passions is underestimated

Take a good look at those around you. Maybe take a good look at yourself and answer this question: How much effort do you believe people invest in discovering their passions?

My guess is, on a scale from 1 to 100, around 7 to 9. Most people don’t care about being passionate – they care about being successful. But when you look at those who were truly successful, you’ll see that they talk a lot about the importance of passion.

There’s a video from the 5 D Conference form 2007 where Steve Jobs speaks about the importance of passion and says that if you don’t have fun doing what you’re doing, eventually you’re going to give up.

In fact, being passionate is so important that if you’re not passionate about what you’re doing, your whole life is going to be affected.

If you’ve ever been passionate about something, then maybe you can remember the energy that ran through your body and mind at that time. You used to feel great no matter what and maybe you could have even said that you felt happy. Do you remember it?

That energy impacted your mental and physical health, your social interactions, and overall your well-being. When that energy is missing, all these things are still impacted, but in a negative manner.

When you are passionate about what you do, it’s easier to keep going

This is the most important benefit when it comes to being passionate: you’ll find it easier to keep going, even when uncomfortable and hard situations arise.

Being passionate has sometimes its downsides. You may end up losing money or you may feel like a weirdo among your friends because you believe too much in something that seems impossible – that’s in case your extremely passionate about something.

Take as example Elon Musk and his desire to help the human species populate more than one planet. When he was at the beginning of his quest, he was most of the time judged by other people because what he aspired to do seemed impossible. It still is, but the efforts Elon did in the last years made us think that maybe he’s onto something and we stopped judging his actions.

Eventually, your passions will help you create a world worth living in.

But being passionate is not only about changing the world we’re living in or even about creating a different one. For me, being passionate is about living a life where you’re satisfied with what you’re doing and also inspiring those around you through what you’re doing.

With this tool, you’ll get to discover that type of passion that will help you enjoy life by simply being passionate about what you’re doing.

This tool will help you:

1. Discover the needed and available resources for discovering your passions.
2. Understand how passion, curiosity, and desire impact the process of discovering your passions.
3. Learn how to use an experimental mindset to discover your passions.
4. Understand the world better through your passions.