Passion is the fuel that propels us forward, helping us to impact the world. It’s the hinge that opens the window of opportunity. How can we nurture our passion for ensuring that our tank stays full?
What Interests You?
Whatever it is that engages you, that consumes you, nurture and cultivate that. Become the best pilot/writer/gardener/mechanic/surgeon/teacher/photographer/ musician you can be by working on—practicing—your talents, your skillset.
Want to be an author? Books don’t write themselves. They’re birthed by people who work at the craft, who embrace opportunities to sharpen their skills, who show up and put in time and effort, who do the work.
Find Others Like You
Who shares your same enthusiasm for creating a positive impact in the arena that excites you? Find them. It might be at a conference, on Meetup, or at a seminar. There’s strength in numbers so find opportunities to connect with people who share your vision so that you can support each other or even collaborate.
Maintain Balance
It’s difficult to make a positive, uplifting, constructive, and healing impact on the community around you, let alone the world when you’re overwhelmed or burnt out. To prevent that from happening, it’s imperative to schedule time to recharge your personal battery so you can continue to generate fuel—passion—that propels you forward; so you can continue to devote time and energy to your interest.
Own It
You know that kick butt, take names spark that’s part of everything you do? Hold onto it; own it; use it to put yourself out there. Not everyone—including some of the people who are closest to you—will see your vision the same way you do. Not everyone will share your excitement or enthusiasm. And that’s okay. It’s your passion that matters. Eventually, they’ll catch a glimpse of what you see, and they’ll honor your go-get-em drive. They might even hop on the bandwagon and help you go for it.
Have a Roadmap
What’s your plan? How are you going to approach potential setbacks such as emotional stress or financial strains? You’ve got to set yourself up for success by planning for how you’ll reach your goals, how you’ll continue to care for and support yourself. It’s difficult to hit a target if you don’t know what it looks like.
In my book, Note to Self: A Seven-Step Path to Gratitude and Growth,I ask the questions:
- What was the greatest moment of the greatest thing that you’ve ever been part of?
- On a scale of one to nine, where do you rate yourself on the quality of your current energy experience, if one represents low (weak, ineffectual) and nine is reminiscent of the energy behind your greatest moment (drive, passion, effort, elation)?
Physicists tell us that we live in a world filled with possibilities driven by probabilities that are affected by observation and attention.
If you haven’t thought about the energy behind your most significant moment and its relationship to the energy you’re expending today, then you’re not using what you observed there to affect your current probability and possibility.
It’s been said that “if you always do what you always did, then you’ll always get what you always got.” That’s true no matter how you slice it—both positively and negatively.
If you develop a habit of relating the energy of your greatest moment to the energy of your current moment, then you’ll find yourself leveraging power—the kind that can change the world.
