3 Steps to Process Your Career’s Passion
Picture this: you’re self-aware, but passionless. You can be any age or in any phase of your career only to suddenly realize that you do not know what your passion is. Maybe you do know, but it no longer fits you or your lifestyle. Regardless, what steps can you take when all of a sudden you are freaking out about it all? What steps can you take to process your passion in work, so you can manage your career in the right direction?
In Real Simple, there was an article titled, “In 15 minutes you can…snap out of a funk - Clear the cobwebs and pull yourself out of a bad mood, pronto.” After reading it, I realized these three steps can help you process your career’s passion. Below are Real Simple’s steps with my commentary:
1. Decode Your Mood
“What’s really bugging you? Are you avoiding something? Could it be more than one thing?” I like Real Simple’s three questions in this step because it recommends focused self-reflection.”
- “What’s really bugging you?” is a baby step to understanding what’s going on with you. Are you only jobless? Bored with your job? Or really don’t know what your passion is? Some of us haven’t wanted to grow up, be on our own, making that transition to a career. Or we haven’t had to because the economics wasn’t forcing us to take those non-dream jobs to pay the rent. Be honest with yourself about why you may have avoided finding your passion. Being honest with yourself clears the path for finding your passion. If you’re not avoiding anything, great.
- Second baby step is that chances are there’s more than one thing going on with you regarding finding your passion. It’s rarely “I don’t know what my passion is…” It’s usually a combination of things: “I don’t know what I what I love to do for work and I don’t have a job or I’m bored in my job.” Take time to figure out all the things driving your self-awareness
2. Calm Down
“Focus on breathing, make a pie chart, find a quiet place, distract yourself, get some exercise, blow off steam.”
- It’s stressful when you realize you don’t know what your passion is. So take care of yourself by doing the things that calm you down. When your anxiety levels are down, your mind will be more open and receptive to the reflection required to brainstorming your passion.
- As for the pie chart, do this only if you want to procrastinate by making a cool chart on why you’re freaking out!
3. Create a Strategy
“Talk to a problem-solver, make a list, visualize your ideal.”
- If you have friends or work buddies, ask them for their advice and observations of you. If I would had known someone like me when I started out my career, I would have talked to me! But I wasn’t that aware, I didn’t realize that I needed passion in my career. I thought I had figured it out so I was going through the motions. But when I discovered things that I really loved to do in my skill set, all of a sudden I started realizing what I was passionate about.
- Sometimes we have to work in non-dream jobs just so we can practice all types of skills so we know what we like and don’t like. Start making a list in journal or blog about your journey towards finding your career. There’s something to be said about writing it down and re-reading it later so you can learn more about yourself and your process.
- I’m also a big believer in visualization. If I can’t see myself doing it, then I know it won’t happen. You have to take a risk and give yourself permission to see yourself successful in a non-dream job or dream job. Even if it’s vague like “I see myself working in an environment that is very structured with strict processes. This structure helps me learn new skills to practice and test to see if it triggers my passion.”
Passion Takes Time, So Calm Down and Don’t Be Hard On Yourself
Remember that finding passion takes time. If you’re bored with your job that one’s thing. There’s no pressure to find passion. If you don’t have a job or are just starting out, know that passion takes time to find so focus on getting your first job or second job so you can be exposed to more types of skills. Passion isn’t required for a job. Self-confidence is and properly representing yourself in an interview is.
