How to Pursue Your Passions
If you’ve recently finished school, been laid off, or experienced a life changing event, now is the time for you to pursue your passions. While some people prefer their passions to be a hobby, because they don’t want to equate them with work and stress, others put their whole mind and soul into making their passions a full-time occupation. Depending on your talents and strengths, you can achieve a lot of success in the area that you’re most passionate about.
The first step in pursuing your passions is to find out what they are. You can have more than one passion, and if that’s the case, you’ll also need to figure out how those things fit together. If your passions are completely opposite, you might choose to pursue only one.
Once you’ve decided what your passions are, you need to determine your end goal. What do you want to happen as a direct result of pursuing your passion? Then, you need to decide a number of different paths that will lead you to that end goal. By deciding on a number of paths, you are leaving the door open in case one path fails you. This will help to keep you positive on the road to success, because you’ll know that you have a “Plan B.”
The next step is education. Even if you’ve received the highest education level possible for your area of passion, there is still more you can learn. If you’ve pursued something other than your passion because of a lack of education, now is the time to get the necessary education to get you on the right path. If you have the education for your passion, but somewhere along the lines pursued something else, you need to figure out why. What skills or abilities were you missing that caused you to try something other than what you are most passionate about?
If you feel that your passion is unattainable, there are ways to work around that feeling. Read some self-help manuals or research others who achieved great success with a lot of hardship. You can also plan to approach your passion in an indirect way. For example, if your passion is to be an actor on Broadway, you can become a voice coach or a theater teacher and perform in your community theater. While it isn’t the exact end goal you wanted, you are still one step closer than you were before.
Find someone to coach or guide you. If you have access to a teacher or mentor that can help you in your journey, use it to the full extent. For example, if you’re a writer, correspond with another successful local writer or published professor from your college. They will usually be willing to instill their knowledge in you and give you some helpful tools to succeed.
Get an accountability partner and make a timeline. Find someone who will make sure you’re staying on one of the paths you’ve laid out for yourself. This way, you won’t be tempted to give up or stray when you have an unsuccessful day. Also, draw yourself a timeline. A timeline can look like a number of things, depending on your passions and your end goal. For example, you might want to finish school in three months and run for office in a year. You need to fill in all the extra blanks to help you along the way.
The key word is pursue. To pursue something means to chase it. If you’re chasing a dream, you really need to go after it. You can’t beat someone in a race by walking, so have that mentality towards your passion. If you really want it you’re going to have to put in a lot of time and effort, so be prepared mentally and physically.