Only an authentic life will allow you to leave a legacy worth remembering. By discovering your passions, you can create a life of success and happiness.
I discussed the importance of living an authentic life in a recent interview Dr Tony Alessandra (pictured left), a business professor, author 27 books and a hall-of-fame keynote speaker. He stated that it was only when he chose to allow his true self to emerge when speaking, that his speaking career and business really took off.
It’s only by discovering our real passions in life and by expressing our message authentically, that we are able to leave an empowering legacy. However, finding your passions in life is not always easy. It is not an area of life that is taught about at school, or in the workplace and yet it is crucial to true success and happiness.
One could argue that success without passion is a hollow victory. What is the point of being great at something if you don’t care about it? That’s a big question that a lot of people face in many areas of life.
In order to address this fear, here is a quick 3 step process that you can go through to find your passions and add more activities in your life that will cater to your passions so that you can live more authentically.
Pursuing Passions Exercise: Use this simple 3 step process to uncover your passions and find ways to enjoy more of them in your daily life.
- Write down everything that you are passionate about. Also write what you could be passionate about (activities you would like to try but are not sure about) and everything that you used to be passionate about when younger.
Example – Art, history, music, dancing, interior design, cooking.
- Write down what qualities need to be within you in order to excel in each area.
E.g. Dancing requires rhythm, ability to follow procedures and rules but still find emotional flair within it, patience, love of movement etc.
Interior design in this example probably requires almost all of the same qualities. So could art, music and cooking.
- The final step is then either schedule more time to do one of the activities that you love or look into finding a new activity that requires similar skills to begin indulging in.
If at any point you are struggling to rank which of your passions are most important to begin with, here are:
5 key questions to ask yourself to know if you are likely to pursue a passion.
- Would I do this activity happily for free and even pay to regularly do it and/or get training in it?
- Would I want to do activity even if none of my friends or family were interested in it?
- Can I envision myself having moments of great pleasure and/or satisfaction when doing this activity?
- Do I feel confident that with the right training and/or effort that I can excel in this activity?
- Would I be proud to be known for participating in and possibly excelling at this activity?
Use the 3 step process outlined and the 5 key questions if needed to uncover your passions so that you can begin to live an authentic life and leave a legacy worth remembering.
To listen to my interview with Dr Tony Alessandra, where he reveals his business and life success tips and learn more about the passions discovery processes outlined above, click here.
