How to Discover what you are Passionate about

Because you can spend hours driving, you may not be passionate enough to become a driver. Because you go out to play cricket anytime your friends call you, you may not be passionate enough to become a cricketer. You may love cooking but if you are told to cook for hundred people, it may be a burden for you and you will lose interest.

There is a vast difference between something you like, something you love and something you’re passionate about. But it is the most difficult thing, to differentiate between the three.

Luckily, Passion is the most magical out of all. Loving is a part of it. Liking is just an attraction that may last a few minutes as well. 

How to know if it is your Passion?

1.    You love it

You may like eating potatoes but you love eating fries.  Merely liking it is a clear sign that you will be able to drag it up to a certain limit and then you will want to quit. Just like you will not want to make a relationship with everyone you like. But the person you love will definitely be someone to you.

"If you don't love what you do, you won't do it with much conviction or passion."

-Mia Hamm

2.    You love it Consistently

Consistency is greater than intensity. If you can sing for hours for so many days, weeks, months and finally reach a point where you start losing interest in it, it is not your passion. It can’t be.

But if it has been years since you started and even now you find it just as same as the first day, then maybe, it is what you are passionate about.

3.    You want to learn more

You will never rest and think you know enough of it. Every time you will learn something new, you will want to dig a little deeper.

"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious." 

-Albert Einstein

4.    Quality above Quantity

When you are truly passionate about something, the money it makes, the grades it fetches, the amount of likes, comments, shares it offers will hardly matter to you.

You may look up to it as an option to earn a living, but you will never judge your performance on quantitative basis.

 You will always want to become better. You will be happy in doing so.

5.    You will miss it

You can’t go without doing it for a relevant period of time. If an artist is stuck in his broker business, he will miss painting, wouldn’t he?

6.    It comes Naturally to you

If you ever speak to a person who is passionate about poetry, it will reflect in his thoughts, in words he utters, in the way he looks at everyone. The truth is, he can’t help it. It comes naturally to him. He does not regret it, but enjoys.

"Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you."

-Oprah Winfrey

 Settling Myths about Passion

1)  It is born with you

"We must act out passion before we can feel it."

-Jean-Paul Sartre

 No. It is not. You find and build it eventually. It is one hundred percent possible that you find what you are truly passionate about in your thirties, forties or even later. Because it is never late to start, it is always magical when you find it. Life isn’t that unfair.

2)  You can’t get irritated doing it

Do not hurry in choosing your passion. Have patience. You can’t pursue a thing for long without getting irritated with it. You might get angry when a musical piece you are working on is not yielding the results you expected.

You can skip a day or two. Your passion will always allow you for that. In the end, all you need to see is, did you quit?

3)  You have to be the best

How can anyone be the best? It is even possible? You can only be better than before. Your passion may be the passion of millions of other individuals.

You know the best thing? When you’re passionate, you don’t even care.

4)  You are already good at it

You may have talent to pursue your passion more efficiently but hard work is always greater than talent. Everything, your habits, your likes, dislikes can be lost, can be changed if you don’t practice. There’s no substitute. Isn’t it so beautiful to know?

Practice is water to your seeds of passion. They can’t grow without it.

Whatever you want to do, you have to work on it. Just like the concept of soul mates only looks good in world where reality never hits. Two people like each other, work hard on their relationship and eventually fall in love.

Fall in love with what you do. It may be a passion of yours you never knew.

-Rashi Jain