No amount of training, practice or tips for your life can help if you don’t have passion.  If you don’t have passion you will be living a life that you are only enduring instead of truly experiencing the joys of living out your passion. Blogger Alister Cameron quotes the author of “Multiple Streams of Internet Income: How Ordinary People Make Extraordinary Money Online,” Roger G Allen: “Purpose is doing what you really want because it expresses you.  Live the life you were born to live.”  There are four things that coexist: passion, values, talent and destiny.

Blogologist Alister Cameron has a great post titled “If you don’t have passion and purpose, greater productivity won’t help you!” It was motivated by Ben Yoskovitz’s Ultimate Guide to Productivity.

“No amount of effectiveness training, time management skills, productivity tips and tricks or goal setting know-how will replace the critical missing ingredient of your life: passion.

Until you discover your ‘fire within’ you will remain condemned to a life only endured, not lived; to delicacies only tasted, not devoured; to joys only imagined, not experienced. And in old age you will lament the days of your youth, when fears about money and security kept you from taking the leaps of faith and courage in the direction of your dreams.”

Well said. I couldn’t agree more.

Cameron quotes Robert G. Allen from his book Multiple Streams of Internet Income: How Ordinary People Make Extraordinary Money Online regarding uncovering your passion and purpose:

“Purpose is knowing what you want and doing it because it expresses who you really are. Billy Graham, Julio Iglesias, Lee Iacocca, Mother Theresa (when she was alive). They’re “on purpose.” They’re living the life they were born to live. It’s hard to imagine them doing anything else. They don’t need goals to motivate themselves. They’d do it anyway. And if they do set goals, it’s just to keep score.

I’ve spent a lot of time studying highly effective people, including graduates of my various seminars, and I find four threads that run through all of their conversations:

Passion: They love what they do. If they weren’t making so much money, they’d be tempted to do it for free.

Values: Their daily activities are extremely important to them.

Talent: They’re good at what they do. Call it talent or ability, they’ve got what it takes to be one of the best.

Destiny: They have a sense that they are doing what they were born to do. They are making their own unique contribution. It’s almost a spiritual thing. They’re following their intuition and feel they are fulfilling their destiny.”

So where do you start in determining your passion? Where does that passion lie? You know you must have it somewhere.

The key is to focus on what matters to you.

You have no idea, you say? You’ve been in a rut for so long, you wouldn’t know passion if it bit you on the backside?

Imagine your life at one, three and five years from now or at a time when your life is in balance. Create an overall vision of what that life will look like. Don’t worry about the details at this point. Remember, this is a process – experiment, and don’t discount anything. It’s not a race. Don’t force it or pressure yourself.

To brainstorm about where your passion lies, think about the things that you enjoy thinking about, talking about and doing.

Still stumped as to your passion? Then take out a pen and paper and try these exercises:

Exercise #1 – Take 3 minutes to freely and uninhibitedly write your answers to the following questions:

• What excites you?
• What are you passionate about?
• What could you stay up until 3am talking excitedly about?
• What do you daydream about?

Exercise #2 – Take 5 Minutes to answer this question:

• What are your strongest convictions, values, beliefs?

Exercise #3 – Take 3 minutes to write the answer to this question:

• What do you do well, or get compliments on?

Exercise #4 – Take 5 minutes to freely and uninhibitedly write your answers to the following questions:

• If time and money weren’t an issue, and if nobody judged you, what would you do with your life?
• What would you attempt in your life if you were assured that there was no possible way to fail?

Give yourself permission to think this way. Your passion is within you waiting to come out.

“A passion-driven exultant man sings out sentences that he has never thought…”
~ William Butler Yeats

Special thanks to Tristan Loo of The Synergy Institute for including this post in his Personal Development a& Life Success carnival.