Reignite Your Passion

Passion is the ultimate driver of personal development. It takes you with the engines to pursue a goal. It creates a sense of flow, lightness, happiness, and purpose. It empowers and enables you to overcome obstacles on the way. It pivots on your beliefs and strengths. It allows you to explore new things and learn. It connects you with others.?

?The word passion was originally associated with suffering. Around Shakespeare's time, it started to have some positive connotations. It was mainly in the 20th century when it became positively associated with the term: ”pursue your passion” based on the monumental research of Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness (2007). Some prominent researchers have provided recognisable synonyms such as ‘mojo’ (Goldsmith, 2010),’ juice’ (McGayer, 2023), ‘inner-drive’ (Grover, 2013), ‘drive’ (Pink, 2009) and ‘grit’ (Duckworth, 2017).

?My working definition of passion is positive feelings that create meaning in our lives, enable self-improvement, and selflessly help others.

?There are four key components of the definition above: feeling, meaning, self-improvement, and selflessness, which I would like to explore in more detail below.

-????? Feelings

Passion triggers feelings. Feelings are influenced by emotions and they are generated from thoughts. (Rachel Allyn, 2022). The mental process of thinking is stimulated by our senses, activities, things, and people. At work, more often executives are on autopilot by jumping from one meeting to another, pulled by news headlines, which limit their ability to think and be fully present in the conversations and tasks at hand. As a result, there are missed opportunities, underperformance, and miscommunications, which lead to conflicts, which can be emotionally draining, and stressful and take time and effort to be resolved. In this vicious spiral of fast-speed inertia, executives are becoming emotionally numb. Their inner child, who once been curious about the world, dreamed big, and played joyfully, is now fearful and tucked in the corner. As adults, we lose our skills to dream which we had in abundance in our childhood. Our beginner’s mind with which we explore the world with curiosity has been replaced by the adults’ fixed mindset’, the latter concept coined by Carol Dweck (2017). By restoring emotional balance, not only would improve well-being but is essential part of completing a meaningful change.

-????? Meaning

Meaning embedded in the passion can be described as a compass (Duckworth, 2017), which guides you on the way. It can also be associated with the criteria and beliefs that matter to you. It is also something you love doing. It brings a spring to your step. Viktor Frankl described actions and love, which are derivatives of our outer and inner world, respectively, as the key ways to find positive meaning.

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The relationship cultivated with the activity (or thing) could also define our identity, achievements, reputation and acceptance (Goldsmith, 2009). Therefore, the passion requires a strong self-awareness of your true motivation in pursuing it.

-????? Self-improvement

Whilst passion has a positive connotation, it also has a dark side, which Stulberg and Magness (2019) define as a ‘passion paradox’. They distinguish between healthy and obsessive passion. In both cases, the body releases dopamine, which can become addictive. A healthy passion can become obsessive if external validation of results achieved is looked for. A healthy passion comes with the pleasure of improving yourself. It also recognises that positive results will be achieved over time rather than instantly. Stulberg and Magness define them as incremental achievements, whilst Goldsmiths (2009) encourages us to live in the small moments. Passion can be similar to learning, as both are factors in changing the behaviour. Therefore, it needs to be nourished carefully and mindfully.

-????? Selflessness

When your passion is focused on serving others, the gratitude received is times higher than the efforts involved. By serving others it allows you to connect and develop relationships, which are among the biggest gifts of humans. It also allows you to remain grounded and truthful to your beliefs. By being selfless also allows you to align your body, heart, and mind.

?Passion in the workplace

When was the last time you filled up an engagement survey at work? How did it make you feel? If you feel a crunchy feeling in your stomach, I am with you. By design, the corporate engagement surveys are aimed to measure the passion of the employees at the workplace. By one-size-fits-all approach, especially in large organisations, those surveys are rarely a reflection of individual knowledge and ability to perform a job. Those surveys enable conversations within the organisations starting from the team to the senior levels. If those conversations are conducted in a psychologically safe environment, which means vulnerability is not shameful or taken advantage of, failure is discussed as a learning experience, then the action points agreed upon will be engaging, and shared ownership will be achieved. At the individual level, those surveys could be taken as an opportunity to reflect on your motivation, what made you excited to start working in this organisation in the first place; what did you learn and what else would you like to learn. By answering these questions and some more, you could make a self-check why you are still working in this place. It can also enable you to set up your personal goals, stretch yourself, and reignite that passion for success.

?Wellbeing

?The research on passion has branched into neuroscience. As mentioned earlier, the release of dopamine as a result of pursuing an activity with a passion can have a positive impact on our wellbeing. This type of stimuli can keep us engaged, focused, and fulfilled. The important things to remember are to self-reflect and keep in check the motivations and the impact of external validations on them. The ability to have a reality check is important to maintain the positive impact of passion on our well-being. For instance, when people self-assess themselves, they tend to project an optimism bias, which boosts their confidence. This is often balanced by the ability to be grounded and humbled. In the organisational context, 360 feedback could be helpful. You could also consider hiring an executive coach and explore your blind spots. My coaching programme Seeing Through the Fog is especially created for leaders to identify their blind spots and gain clarity.

?Challenges

?Finding a new passion can be challenging as you may feel lost, confused, and despondent. Transitioning from one passion to another can pose challenges too.

?This is experienced by athletes, who for various reasons need to stop competing. The ability to reframe and prepare in advance for this transition are two practical examples that are researched by Stulberg and Magness (2019).

?Similarly, executives who have spent a long time in one company or industry may find it difficult to transition to another. The process of change also triggers emotions and resistance. It can also be associated with a loss of identity (Marshall, 2010). In those situations, the key is to learn to let go and accept the change. My coaching programme Breaking Through Stagnation is especially designed for high achievers to rediscover their passion.

?The positive results/experiences from pursuing a passion take time. As mentioned, the process is based on incremental results and small wins. Imagine learning to play guitar. At the beginning, your fingers may have blisters from the strings. By being persistent, they harden up and consequently, you can experience a leap of joy when making progress in mastering your technique. Fender found that 50% of the guitars bought each year are by first-time players and that 90% of them give up playing or learning within the first year. Marshal Goldsmith also observed that two main reasons people give up too early are: 1) it takes too long and 2) it is too difficult than initially thought (2010). Hence, persistence, tenacity, courage, focus, curiosity, visualisation, and enjoyment are some of the key elements to pursuing your passion with success.

?How to reignite your passion?

?I have noticed that a lot of senior executives have lost the sparkle in their eyes, either from boredom or exhaustion from being on the battlefield for so long. By rekindling their passions, the sparkle can be reignited. I have created a free toolkit ‘7 Tips to Rekindle Your Passion’. Email me at: [email protected] to receive a copy.

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Further reading:

Allyn R., 2022, The important difference between Emotions and Feelings, Psychology Today, The Important Difference Between Emotions and Feelings | Psychology Today

Dweck C., 2017, Mindset - Updated Edition: Changing The Way You think To Fulfil Your Potential, Robinson

Duckworth A., 2017, Grit: Why passion and resilience are the secrets to success, Vermilion

Fender, 2024, 81 Latest Guitar Industry Statistics (2024) - Guitar Inside Out

Frankl V., 2004, Man's Search For Meaning, Rider, 2004 (originally published in 1947)

Goldsmith M., 2010, Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back If You Lose It, Profile Business; Main edition

Grover T. and S. Wenk, 2013, Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable, Scribner Book Company

Hyman M. and G. McGareyr, 2023, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age, Michael Joseph

Pink D. H., 2009, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Riverhead Books

Stulberg B. and S. Magness, 2019, The Passion Paradox: A Guide to Going All In, Finding Success, and Discovering the