What are you passionate about? I don’t mean “what interests you”, or “what would you like to see happen”.

Do you ever explore your hidden passions in relation to your career? Do you ever ask yourself, “What job should I do?” I know I have asked this question myself more than once. What are your passions? What are your skills and aptitudes? How do you find your passion and develop it into a real goal?

Passion makes for a life well-lived. If you’re going to do something do it 100 percent of you. That means integrity, a thinking pro-active attitude, no cutting corners, and no room for mediocrity. If you don’t have a passion, it’s time to simply be passionate about the life you have chosen.

Below are some motivational reminders to stay connected with your passion:

1. Remember What You Loved as a Child
Often, our truest passions emerge in childhood, only to be squelched by real-life pressures. So think about what you loved long before you had to worry about your career. Writing? Science experiments? Taking care of people? Getting back in touch with those instincts is an important step in finding your passion.

2.Identify your Professional Hero
Of everyone you know, either personally or in your extended frame of reference (from your dermatologist to Oprah), whose career would you most want to emulate? Reach out to her to learn more about how she got to where she is, or, if that’s not possible, read everything you can about her career and life. 

3. Give Yourself Permission to Explore
Now that you’ve started to pay attention to which activities and interests make you feel most energized, keep doing more of them and stay away from those that drain you. Eventually, as you give yourself permission to go down these roads, you’ll start to narrow down your passions more and more, just by doing what feels best to you.

4.Think of What You Enjoy That You Also Do Well
After you’ve done these exercises, think about what you’ve learned. Focus on the things that you both enjoy and do well—whether you have a way with animals, make a killer lemon tart, or are crazy for origami—and write them down. Then, narrow the list to the top three or four things. Keep it handy, review it often, and use it as your jumping-off point when you’re plotting your career move.

5. Stay Open and Flexible
Finally, know that when you follow your interests, they could lead you on a different path than you ever expected. So, it’s important to stay open and flexible without any attachment to where you’ll end up

6. Ask yourself what you would do if money was no object
Would you move to the beach and write novels? Would you teach people how to sail? Would you start an organic avocado farm? While in reality, we know that money is, in fact, an object, pretending it isn’t can be a fun way to open new doors that you may never have considered before. When you let go of limiting beliefs, you’ll realize that the world is a much bigger and more exciting place than you thought. Leaving a steady job to pursue your passion may not be an immediate option, but there’s nothing stopping you from working towards your goals in your spare time.

7. Take action
Often, we spend so much time hemming and hawing over what to do next that we get stuck in our heads. If you’ve been wondering what step to take next for a while, often, a leap of faith can be the best way to set you in the right direction. Whether you’ve been thinking about volunteering at a charity organization or enrolling in a workshop, you never know the opportunities that will come from simply taking action on something that piques your interest.

To unearth our true passion, it was important for us to understand the true meaning of compassion, anger, accomplishment, and judgments. To find passion one must expand the comfort zone, as the world needs your innovation and it is your duty to make it count. However, finding your passion is not an easy task.

So, find your passion, see what drives you, and brainstorm around it. Then, give them a go, who knows where they will take you.

Love and light,

Manali Scott