Portfolio of Hope

Passion (noun): a very strong feeling of liking something, e.g. a hobby, activity or concept (Oxford Dictionary.)

People spend hours and hours scrolling through endless web pages and blog posts, in between reading hundreds of self-help books, in an effort to discover what it is they are passionate about. This relentless searching leads to search histories being saturated with questions along the lines of ‘how can I find my passions in life?’ People who are desparate to discover their life purpose hold the naive expectation that a search engine somehow has the capability to tell them what they like. I know that I for one have fallen victim to this thinking, believing that my passions are things that need to be ‘found’, as though my life is a lost cause in need of saving.

The problem is, in your search for passion you will end up wasting your whole life time seeking something that is right in front of you. The search is endless and relentless because there is nothing to be found. Your passions are already within you, as they always have been and will always continue to be. They dominate your life without any searching required. Be brave enough to pursue them.

This blog therefore won’t tell you your passions, nor will it try to tell you your life purpose. I know all too well that no external blog or website can do that. It is an inside job that only you have the power to work on.

Although I can’t tell you what your passions are in this blog post, what I can do is guide you, via the following prompts, on a journey of self-discovery:

1. Instead of thinking about what your passion(s) are, a word that is often confused as being part of a big ‘soul searching’ mission, consider what you spend a significant amount of your free time thinking about. This is a far simpler concept to grasp and makes finding your passion less of a ‘task.’
2. Consider what you find yourself frequently talking about in conversations, and resarching on the internet.

To use myself as an example here, I have identified that a great deal of my time is spent thinking, engaging in conversations, and researching about spirituality, the universe and all the connections to having faith in a higher power. This can therefore be classified as one of my passions. It is something that I find so fascinating and love delving into a book or having a gripping conversation about mid walk.

Another passion of mine is eating disorder/mental health recovery. As is evident by this blog, I love to write about my experiences with my own mental health, particularly my battle with Anorexia. The thought of helping other people through the sharing of my personal struggles motivates me a great deal.

A final passion I have identified in myself is entrepreneurship. From a very young age I have loved the world of business and enjoy making money. I am always striving to come up with innovative ways of doing things, and it is entrepreneurship that is the drive behind a lot of what I do and the decisions I make.

The three passions that I have detailed above (spirituality, mental health, and entrepreneurship) haven’t taken me a long time of searching to discover. Why? Because they have always been an important part of my life- they are subjects that excite and motivate me.

So, instead of spending any more time researching how you can find your passions, relax and remember that you already have them. They don’t need finding. You are not lost. You are exactly where you need to be.