Find Your Passion and Nourish It

Always feed your passion.

If you like to make art, then work on your art.
If you like to write, sit down and write.
If you like to ice skate, then make time for the ice.
If you like to dance…dance!
If you have passion for helping people, help them.
If you have passion for baseball, play it, watch it, read about it.

Speaking of which…
If you have a passion for the Boston Red Sox, get season tickets, even if you don’t live in Boston. (That’s what Beth, my best friend from kindergarten, does. She lives in Washington, DC…but she never gave up her Sox season’s tickets. Now, that is passion!)

Never neglect your passion.

What exactly is passion?

Merriam Webster’s Dictionary defines passion as:
“a strong feeling of enthusiasm or excitement for something or about doing something.”

Some people are afraid of the word “passion.” They tell me that they don’t have it, or they don’t know what it is, or they have never felt it. I get the feeling that these people think that passion has to be a grand, all-encompassing desire or force.

You can define passion for yourself.

Ask yourself: what does passion mean to me?

To me, passion is that thing (or those things) that I love intensely. It is what drives me, an ardent desire, something I love to do, something I believe in. When I’m aligned with my passion, I feel very alive, lit up, in the zone, filled with energy, excited, motivated, jazzed up.

Why do people have trouble finding their passion, or worse, think that they don’t have any? Because they either think it has to be a life-changing, transformational force, or that they have to compress their passion into one thing.

I am giving you permission to define “passion” for yourself. What does it mean to you? And, now that you’ve defined it, what is your “passion” / “passions?”

Here’s my list:
Helping people out of jobs they hate and into work they love
Helping people see more possibilities or bigger possibilities for themselves than they can see on their own
Ice skating
Writing/speaking about what’s happening in today’s job market
The Blues
Being able to see things differently, to find anomalies and make sense of them
Dancing the waltz & polka
Training my dog and my husband…no, I mean spending time with my husband! (Just checking to see whether he will read to the end of this article. :o) )

So, what is your passion – and are you spending time nourishing it? Spend time with your passion. Feed it. Doing so will bring you joy…