Personalizing the "P" word
Snigdha Ghosh Ray
VP, Payments at Diebold Nixdorf, India R&D Hub Country Lead. Fintech specialist. Health-tech enthusiast
I have read several blogs, articles and books on how to identify and sustain passion. The quantum of interesting literature on what i refer to as the "Idealistic passion" led me to self-introspect on what passion means to me.
Passion has a surreal quality; "the source of passion" could be a person, activity or object that engrosses you completely in that moment. All of us may have experienced such moments – "at work during a sales presentation or a client demo, or while teaching your child, or when you try out a new recipe or when you hid in the washroom to read an economics book before your history exam". These are moments when you don’t realize the passage of time, when you feel immensely energetic, when you crave to do more; more importantly you eat, live & breathe these moments. Passion is like the "North Star". It gives your life a purpose and a direction. There could be deviations, by passes, halts but it guides you over the years with an overarching vision.
Some people find their passion early; some take a lifetime and yet don’t find it. It is important that a person is aware and tries to find her passion, but not be obsessed with it. Identifying passion is a discovery process. Should one have a single passion only? No; passion could have a lot of shades or variations; it doesn't have a Boolean value, a love or hate relationship. I am very passionate about "learning", "child education", "product" and "technology". They may or may not converge to my North Star in the long run but I don’t kill myself thinking about it. What is important is that I enjoy the moments of pursuing either of my passions, continuing to discover myself. Is it necessary that passion remain the same throughout your lifetime? No; since as one gains knowledge and exposure through new experiences, we acquire more clarity in our purpose of life. While you could have been passionate about turning around business, you may evolve to wanting to take up a social cause and make a difference to people's lives.
We hear several inspiring stories of people making personal sacrifices to follow their passion. Is it essential that we have to put our & family needs to the sacrificial dias to achieve our passion ? To me, passion is a higher order basic need. I am very passionate about conservation of natural resources on earth. However, I have commitments that do not allow me to take a very active role currently in such a cause. While I conceive a means to influence a transformation in the next 5 years, I could continue to make small differences by supporting such a movement as part of my daily life.
Often we experience "high energy & happy moments" during our wins or recognition moments especially if it is on a large social platform. The moment gives us a temporary "high" due to an intense rush of adrenaline. Mistaking instant gratification for passion and following it could result in a gross error. The extrinsic levers driving gratification could make our performance or strife for excellence vulnerable to factors that cannot be controlled by us.
Passion heightens mindfulness, keeping one totally focused & committed to the activity at hand, thereby immersing completely into the flow and enhancing performance. Passion inspires you when you are down, challenges you during complacency, gives you direction when lost and pushes your limits to excel.
"Passion is not the end, it is the journey to discover, engage, evolve and excel."
* Thanks to Dr Prasad Kaipa for his coaching on North Star
Senior Business Analyst
8 年Hi Snigdha, while Passion is infectious as you said, I have also seen "indifference" going contagious as well :). It is really hard for a single passionate individual to inspire passion in others when apathy is the norm. Please also write about protecting ones passion and successfully countering the "passionate indifference" that a person may have to run against in the journey of life. Eager to read your thoughts on this.
QA Engineering Manager and Quality Architect
8 年The Blog is really good. A different opinion on the article. Every living being has a passion on doing their own activity of day in life and that is nature. When Passion agitates with goals in life which is more for Human beings and we don't see them in other living beings. The goals are rest when life up and downs do happen and that is human nature. The goals resetting and getting motivated towards achieving them with target lines. Kids looks for parents to motivate till they have their individual mature thought on goals and passion in life, Employee look for Employer for how the organization is helping him achieve his/her goals in career progression, Leader motivates his juniors so and so forth...this is a cycle. Everybody looks for other one to move forward in life re-looking at goals. Success is sweet, but success should not leave our feet from ground. As in life Humans needs to have moving targets to keep himself motivated and inspiring the life to lead in command. just to conclude the thought, Passion always has Motivation and it is a moving target in life. Some convert the passion into Goals and some don't but still they do enjoy on the activity they involve. That is the nature of life.
Specialist Master (Sr. Cloud Solution Architect) @ Deloitte
8 年This reminded me of another post by one of the persons who had influenced me - https://sandeepatre.com/the-passion-at-work/
Very well written. Most people get confused between PASSION and LIKING. Likes fade away at the first sight of difficulty and PASSION is what you eat, sleep and drink.