We often have problems answering the question “What do you REALLY want to do with your life?” That’s often due to us blocking the true answer. We have tons of reasons.
“I’m not good enough at it” (tip – no one is great at something when they start doing it)
“I can’t make a living out of it.”
“I’m too old (or too young)”
It’s not about dropping everything else in life and going all in. Start small. Learn more about what you want to do. Start following people who do what you want to do. Your life will improve a lot once you start doing what you really want to do, even if it’s “only” ten minutes a day.
You might not be able to make a living out of it, so what. If it brightens your life (and it will), do it in your spare time.
What brings you joy?
What gives you energy?
What would you do if money wasn’t an issue?
What would you do if you didn’t care what others think?
What are you waiting for? Figure it out and start doing it!
Alan Watts is a favorite of mine, a wise man and there are many talks available online. “What If Money Was No Object?” gives food for thoughts – what would you do if money was no object?
The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.
Michelangelo
The goals we set should be high enough to require an effort, even take us outside our comfort zone, and be worth achieving.
I’ve seen this quote before, today it turned up in “The Element – How finding your passion changes everything” by Sir Ken Robinson. That’s a great book.
The reality is that you don’t need to buy goal setting products. You simply need to know what you want and to make the decision to do everything you can, to make it happen.
I prefer to talk about creating harmony in your life but the message in this video is important and well worth considering.
Work-life balance, says Nigel Marsh, is too important to be left in the hands of your employer. At TEDxSydney, Marsh lays out an ideal day balanced between family time, personal time and productivity — and offers some stirring encouragement to make it happen.
Nigel is spot on – you’re the one responsible for creating the harmony you want in your life. No one else will or can do it for you.
Nigel says this regarding lives out of balance:
There are thousands and thousands of people out there living lives of quiet, screaming desperation who work long, hard hours, at jobs they hate, to enable them to buy things they don’t need to impress people they don’t like.
TEDx video
This was originally posted at Bengt’s Notes, another blog of mine.
Coaching is about change. It can be finding a new career, creating better balance in life or adding a new activity in order to “spice up” life. In these contexts we often talk about trying to find ones passion and to follow ones passion. But finding ones passion is sometimes easier said than done, we either make it too complicated or think (hope) that it will be obvious and just pop up.
It is said that “Find Your Passion; the Money Will Follow” or “Do what you love and money will follow“. Money is not guaranteed but finding and following your passion will for sure make life better. Your passion might be in a tiny market which means you can not make a living from that alone.
Finding your passion is not just about work, it’s about your whole life. If we have activities off work that we are passionate about our life will improve. It’s also a way of testing if our passions can be transferred into a job or a business. Skellie writes that Your hidden talents are the things you could do that would make you happy. My view is that among your hidden talents is your passion.
Your hidden talents will always fit your personality or interests in some way. Instead of being hidden and random – things to be discovered by accident – the things you love doing actually make a lot of sense.
My concept is that a passion is not just floating around waiting to bump you in the head (i.e. “to be found”), but rather, by taking an active approach, you can develop your passionate interests proactively.
I share that view, we have work to do in order to figure out what our (more or less) hidden talents are. Then we have to find out if we can make money from it and how.
How did I find my current passion?
I had been working with IT and computers for a long time. That was and still is a fast changing area which made my work my passion, learning and doing new things at a pace that kept me on my toes. Off work I have always been doing other things, being active in organizations and learning new things – more or less related to what I worked with. Personal development, my own and others, has been a running thread in my life.
As often happens, eventually my passion for IT and computers started to fade. I wanted to do something else but could not figure out what. Like Mike says above, I could not describe my passion yet I knew it was hidden somewhere within reach. That was rather frustrating but I started putting the pieces together. I described my own personal profile, in terms of knowledge – experience – interests etc, using mind mapping and other techniques to connect the dots. One thing I focused on was analyzing situations that made me really feel alive, what was the key and was there any common factors.
After spending time at connecting the dots I realized that many of my different interests overlapped to some extent. That made me curious and I focused on that common ground, the core area that united things. I started to describe that core area in more detail and then realized that I had found my passion: I want to help people be the best they can be.
I had been coaching friends and workmates for years but I decided to take a coaching course that made me a professional coach. I love working as a coach and I learn something from each client session.
The image below comes from Wikipedia’s article about SWOT analysis. The article starts like this:
SWOT Analysis is a strategic planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business venture.
Do not get too hang up on your weaknesses. When it comes to weaknesses we shall think wider than about what we can improve. Do we need to improve in that area or can we team with someone else that balances our weakness?
Keep in mind that what shows up as weakness in one situation can be a strength in another situation, and vice versa.
When searching for more information about SWOT I came across this one, Using a SWOT Analysis in Your Career Planning. There is an example that helps you get started on your own career assessment.
Justin Gomer and Jackson Hille were less than thrilled with the existing guides to SWOT Analysis on the internet and decided to create their own.
Jim Connolly posted 
Mary Jaksch at Goodlife Zen has posted 
Coaching is about change. It can be finding a new career, creating better balance in life or adding a new activity in order to “spice up” life. In these contexts we often talk about trying to find ones passion and to follow ones passion. But finding ones passion is sometimes easier said than done, we either make it too complicated or think (hope) that it will be obvious and just pop up.