I am often asked this question by youngsters..
- I am 24, I am in a software company as a developer, I don’t like coding, but, have not found my passion..
- I have just finished college, but, I have not found my passion yet..
- What should I do to find my passion, or find what I am passionate about..
This kind of question makes takes me by surprise..
People think that passion is esoteric or has to be something unusual. It is not.
People think passion has to be something other than their work, or area of study. Again, it is not necessary.
One can be a software developer, and be passionate about coding and enjoy it.
One can be a writer or a teacher and be passionate about their work.
Workaholics love work. They get engrossed in work. They don’t need anything else to occupy their minds and free time, thought it not a healthy proposition.
So, here is passion dissected:
What are you curious about? What are you interested in doing and love spending time doing?
I was in Sales and Marketing, and loved my job. It was challenging and stressful at times, but, I loved waking up and going to work.
Along the way, I developed a lot of interests other than work.
I stated traveling on work and fell in love in the process of visiting new places, new restaurants and exploring places. I bought a camera on one of the trips and started clicking pictures. Then, I joined a photography workshop so that I could click better pictures. I went on my first trek to the Himalayas at 28 (very late you might think). I loved the experience so much that I hiked several times after that. I created a travelog and started blogging about my trips and shared my pictures, much before facebook and instagram. Then, I started sharing my hotel reviews on trip advisor.
So, one thing led to another and I am passionate about all of these that I do. I also love my work. If I din’t have my sales and marketing day job, I would have been able to do any of the others things I enjoy.
I also once in a while indulge in my childhood hobby, which is drawing and painting. I can paint for hours endlessly, without feeling hungry and thirsty.
However, there are many things I tried and gave up instantly, like the Salsa class I joined. I could not get myself to go to the 3rd class.
So, here’s the point I am trying to make. One can enjoy their work and get engrossed. One can work towards achieving better results and improving your skill with passion. Be a better marketing professional, better writer, better accountant, better investment and fund manager and better software coder.
There are very few people in the world, who have a talent starting from a young age and are able to make an earning out of it. But, for the rest, having a day job is a must, until you can figure what else…For all you know, the day job you are in, is your calling.
But, if you are stuck in a boring job and are wondering what your passion is? That something that will keep you engaged…it is never too late to try new things.
Try different things that you are interested in and you are curious about. It can be simple things like reading, writing, watching movies, photography, learning an instrument, learning a dance form, a hobby like photography, travel, voluntary work to help the needy, cooking, training for a marathon….what ever it may be.
Try different things, explore and figure what you like to do more, and enjoy doing.
Curiosity leads to passion.
Then, figure what you like to do in the world, that’s purpose.
Then see if you can use your passion to achieve your purpose.
Curiosity leads to passion, passion leads to purpose. Got it.
About Author
Sandhya Reddy is a PCC Accredited Executive Coach and Leadership coach based in Bangalore, India. She is the Founder and Principal Coach at Chapter Two Coaching, a coaching consultancy that specializes in leadership development. Sandhya is also a Certified Hogan Assessor and Coach. She has over 750+ hours of experience with coaching senior professionals. She has enabled personal transformation for over 1500+ individuals through coaching interventions, workshops, webinars and mentoring.
Chapter Two helps leaders in middle levels and senior levels engage better with their teams, peers and senior stakeholders. We help teams develop a growth and performance mindset, align better with the organizational culture and values and function more cohesively. We are also passionate about women’s leadership development and have developed a practice around it. We enable leadership development through 1:1 coaching interventions and through a set of curated leadership and personal transformational workshops.