Okay, back to discovering our passion. This is the fun part. Except when it isn’t.
Because when you feel completely numb and can no longer hear that still, small voice within whispering clues about your most fervent desires, it can be a very painful place to be. Fortunately, if you’re willing to dig deep, I guarantee that it’s only a temporary stopover on your way to more blissful, meaningful work.
Caveat though: if you think not knowing what you want is painful, wait until your dreams start revealing themselves. It can be, shall we say, uncomfortable. But obviously, totally worth it.
In the last passion post, I tried to reconcile some of my own ideas with the advice of a few very wise and hip people. The argument for making a career out of your passion versus protecting your art as sacred drums up plenty of controversy. The thing is, what if you don’t feel like you even have an art? What if you’re caught in a soul draining job without the vaguest sense of what would set your heart on fire?
So many of us just stress ourselves out by searching for a purpose, or believing that we’re meant to be doing something huge and magnificent. We beat ourselves up with the notion that anything less is a complete waste of time. But again, a happy and fulfilling life work is way more about who you get to be than what you get to do. And you don’t have to wait for the right job to start being who you really are. Which (it should go without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway) is never a waste of time.
If you feel stuck doing something you don’t enjoy, it’s possible that you never gave yourself a chance to dream really big. I think it’s common to begin reflecting on what work we might enjoy by brainstorming a few “appropriate” ideas, but not allowing ourselves permission to go full throttle with the fantasy. We tend to get all practical and realistic, shutting down the best ideas without ever letting the most exciting possibilities fly, which pretty much precludes us from ever finding our thing.
For me, a better approach was to start huge and grandiose, imagining that anything was possible, as long as my heart was really attracted to it. Once you have a clear idea of the absolute dream, then you can start adjusting little by little, to creatively map out the intersection of ideal and real-world compatible.
You may not be able to verbalize the huge and grandiose idea right away. It might just be a flimsy attraction, or an excited bubble of suggestion on the tip of your tongue. This is where I had to ask myself a scary question: What’s the thing you’re scared to admit you want to do? And just feel safe knowing that imagining your ideal thing doesn’t mean you ever have to take real world action to make it reality. But allowing the possibility is what set my own path into motion.
Another counterintuitive question that might loosen some ideas: Who are you jealous of and why? Are there people you know, or know of, who have jobs that seem too good to be true? Your inner critic might pounce on the idea, calling their success luck or claiming that it would never be possible for you. But why shouldn’t it be you? And what exactly is it about the job that turns you green with envy? Specificity is the key here.
In Career Renegade, Jonathan Fields writes:
“The simple truth is that you can turn nearly any passion into a big, fat heap of money. (Bless him!) However, (damn, you knew there was going to be a ‘however’) it often requires mining aspects of those passions you never knew existed or bringing them to life in markets and ways that defy the mainstream.”
Parenthesis obviously added. This is the advice that most closely matches my own perspective. I don’t know that it contradicts the advice I mentioned in the last post, but it’s certainly a different approach. And maybe the question is whether mining those passions amounts to wrecking your art. I don’t think it has to, I think we can have both. And what I appreciate most about this advice is that it creates space for hope, something Jonathan Fields does very well.
Imagine the invisible part of you, that element of your spirit that would be constant whether you were born in New Jersey or Katmandu. What turns your essential self on? I personally think joy helps steer us toward our destiny, but we have to pay attention. Noticing those activities, people, and topics that light you up can help reveal the blueprint of your ideal work.
In the very wise and inspiring words of Dr. Howard Thurman:
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
