How to identify your passion in life - Let's get meaningful

If you ever feel that you are aimlessly drifting, being more mindful can certainly help answer the ‘all-so-important’ question: How to identify your passion in life. Here’s how mindfulness connects you with yourself and others — especially at work, where you probably spend most of your day.

Perhaps you’re feeling a little down at the moment. For a while now, those things that you had found enjoyment in before, seem to be behind a fog of the hustle and bustle of daily life. There is nothing more than embers left of the passion that had burned so fiercely in your belly and heart.

“What has happened to me?”, you’re probably wondering when the quiet of the night weighs on your mind. “I’m going nowhere…, one slow day after the other,” you panic, thinking about your colleague, who became the youngest ever director at your firm last week. “I should have gotten the promotion. What do I have to do? Who do I have to be?”…, you wonder.

Be YOU with passion

The quick and easy answer is YOU — be and do YOU, as best as you can EVERYDAY. Do it with passion and vigor. Feelings that you’ve experienced before but you've forgotten how they make you feel. Feelings that allow you to accomplish amazing things — achievements that you never thought possible.

Who is Claire?

For a moment, consider Claire. A 30 year-old brunette with a quiet intensity about her and a sharp mind, Claire has risen quickly in the corporate world. She has used every opportunity to jump from job to job and company to company, sometimes within a year.

However, the whirlwind rise started to take its toll. Now, Claire feels tired — burned out. Even scared to lose it all. Worried that her ascent to greatness has stalled. That she will sink back into the nothingness that she had last felt in her youth.

Now, she doesn’t seem to remember why, now years ago, she couldn’t wait for each day to start. She loved her red BMW, and used to be so proud to be seen in it. Now her life has kind of gone monochrome. She knows that she has to get that ecstatic, ‘fire-in-the-belly’ feeling back — possibly soon.

She has been flirting with the idea of becoming an independent consultant, and truth be told she is good at her job. Intelligent, hard-working, with valuable experience to teaching others, she will be freer to chase her dreams, in her own direction. Wherever her newfound passion takes her.

The question arises, how to take the first step? How to start a consulting business? How to become passionate about something again? These are questions that arise day after day in Claire’s mind.

All Claire’s searching for meaning in life brought her to the idea of learning about mindfulness. It seems a solid place to start when searching for meaning in life, people keep telling her.

What is mindfulness?

A mindful attitude means to be able to focus on your experiences and sensations in the present moment with objectivity. You’ve heard of the common expression “it is what it is,” right? The saying refers to getting out of your head and accept the situation you’re in with an open heart and mind.

In moments when you have negative thoughts or feelings, you don’t attach or identify with those. Just let them come and go naturally, with the realisation that they are only temporary — they always are. Also, engage with your environment, including others, without judgment and prejudice. Extract everything you can from every experience.

This is in a nutshell what being mindful means. The poet William Blake once wrote, mindfulness is…

“to see a world in a grain of sand

and heaven in a wildflower,

hold infinity in the palm of your hand

and eternity in an hour.”

We spend far too much of our time in the past and future, neglecting the present. Even though we cannot change anything about the past and are not able to engage the future, we cling to it with everything we have.

Mindfulness helps with how to find what you want to do in life

While the only relevant time at any moment is the present, it is here that we can correct mistakes and learn to deal with the past. It is also here that we can experience life and set the foundation for a healthy and happy future. Rediscover your passion. Take a step towards a new, exciting future. Filled with promise and meaning.

Cognitive science has taught us that our thoughts and feelings influence our behavior, which again produces new thoughts and feelings. If any part of the cycle is negative, the whole process quickly becomes unhelpful and distressing. This understanding has shown us that our worries about the future and past negatively influence our behavior and decisions in the present.

Mindfulness counteracts this process, by teaching us to focus on the current moment. It was famously described by worldwide mindfulness guru, Jon Kabat-Zinn as “paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment to moment.”

The concept may sound complicated, but it is very simple. By being mindful, one focuses attention on the present moment and accepts whatever experience it brings without judgment or avoidance. Dozens of scientific studies over the past decades prove that meditation has powerfully beneficial physical and psychological effects.

These effects may include:

• Lowers blood pressure
• Improves concentration
• Reduces symptoms of anxiety
• Decreases binge eating
• Enhances immune function
• Improves memory
• Alleviates chronic pain conditions
• Increases self-acceptance

In addition to these effects, recent studies have suggested that practicing mindfulness has the potential to change your happiness “set point” – meaning it can make you a happier person.

As a result, we are in a better position to create change — courageous decisions with inner calm. The difference between a monochrome life and one bursting with vibrant colours.

How to apply active mindfulness to identify your passion in life

Mindfulness is commonly practiced in two ways – through traditional meditation practises or by focusing our attention on everyday activities such as walking, eating, washing dishes, etc. As an introduction to mindfulness or meditation, we propose two short, guided audio files for you to listen to and follow.

Before you start…

Choose a quiet spot without distractions and ensure that you have allowed sufficient time to complete the meditation. You can lie on your back or sit in a comfortable position. Relax your neck, shoulders, arms, hands, legs, and feet. Breathe deeply and with a slow rhythm. Close your eyes or keep them open with a soft focus. Start the audio when you are settled and ready. When the audio is finished, gently return your attention to your surroundings. Open your eyes and use one or two deep breaths before resuming other activities.

Mindfulness of breathing

The first exercise, Mindfulness of Breathing, is 6 minutes long and designed to help you focus on your breathing, while relaxing and keeping your mind on the immediate sensation of inhaling and exhaling deeply.

Seeing thoughts as thoughts

The second, Seeing Thoughts as Thoughts Meditation, is 10 minutes long and will help you to realise that thoughts are just thoughts; they don’t represent you or your worth and are not necessarily helpful or accurate as they fleetingly come and go.

How to integrate everyday mindfulness

We also introduce 2 exercises that have proven valuable to practice your mindfulness skills while doing everyday activities.

‘Mindful Walking’ is an exercise that combines spending time outdoors, relaxed walking, and observing your sensations and experience in nature. By doing ‘mindful walking’ at a relaxed pace for anything up to 20 minutes, you rejuvenate your mind and practice focusing your senses on the present moment, away from the stresses and worries that your mind creates.

The ‘5 Senses Exercise’ is another quick and relatively easy exercise to bring you to a mindful state quickly.

If you only have a minute or two or, for whatever reason, you don’t have time at all, the ‘5 Senses Exercise’ can help you quickly bring awareness to the current moment. It involves getting your mind quiet and observing different objects around you using each of your 5 senses. This excercise is also good to relax and focus your mind on something else than its habitual negative thoughts. It helps you find striking and beautiful sensations in your immediate environment that stimulate relaxation and gratitude.

Exercise 1: Mindful Walking

Try to wear comfortable clothing and shoes, if possible. Begin by standing still and becoming aware of your body and how it feels. Notice your posture, feel the weight of your body pressing down toward the ground, and your heels pushing into your shoes; become aware of all the subtle movements that are keeping you balanced and upright.

Allow your knees to bend very slightly and feel your hips as your center of gravity. Take a few deep breaths and begin to walk slightly slower than normal pace, maintaining just a small bend in the knees. With each step, be aware of the gentle heel-to-toe rhythm as each foot touches the ground.

Breathe naturally and fully, deeply filling your lungs with each inhalation, but being careful not to strain or struggle in any way. Allow your eyes to focus softly ahead of you, taking in as much of the periphery as comfortable. Try to maintain a soft body and breathing awareness as you walk naturally and easily.

When your attention drifts away from the sensations of walking and breathing, take note of those thoughts, moods, or emotions without judgment and gently guide your awareness back to the present moment — back to walking.

Continue this mindful walking for anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes, or longer if comfortable.

When it’s time to end the exercise, allow yourself to come to a gentle halt. Pause — once again experiencing yourself standing still, as you feel the earth beneath your feet. Take a few deep breaths as this session comes to a close. Slowly return to your regular activity.

Exercise 2: 5 Senses Exercise

Follow this order to practice the ‘5 Senses Exercise’. You can do this at any time when you have a minute available to focus on something else than a task or activity.

1 – Find 5 things that you can see. Look around yourself and bring your attention to 5 things that you can see. Pick something that you don’t normally notice, like a shadow or a small crack in the concrete.

2 – Sense 4 things that you can feel. Bring awareness to 4 things that you are currently feeling, like the texture of your pants, the feeling of the breeze on your skin, or the smooth surface of a table you are resting your hands on.

3 – Notice 3 things you can hear. Take a moment to listen and note three things that you hear in the background. This can be the chirp of a bird, the hum of the refrigerator, or the faint sounds of traffic from a nearby road.

4 – Identify 2 things you can smell. Bring your awareness to smells that you usually filter out, whether they’re pleasant or unpleasant. Perhaps the breeze is carrying a whiff of pine trees if you’re outside, or the smell of a fast-food restaurant across the street.

5 – Become aware of 1 thing you can taste. Focus on 1 thing that you can taste right now, at this moment. You can take a sip of a drink, chew a piece of gum, eat something, or just notice the current taste in your mouth or open your mouth to search the air for a taste.

Discovering your passion in life

So, after doing these mindfulness exercises, how did Claire change?

Feeling like a new person, relaxed and level-headed, Claire knew she owed it to herself to pursue her dreams. Whatever the cost or risk. She just had to know whether changing her path would relight her inner fire. The heat that gets her up, even on the coldest of winter mornings — that shines through her eyes when she helps people reach their dreams.

Life is a dance. And mindfulness the music. Discover your tune now.