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Are you looking for happiness in the right place?
By Janelle Anderson — Written on Jun 01, 2019
Everyone wants to find their passion; discover how to be happy and do the thing in life that makes them passionate.
But does anyone really know how to find your passion, or what makes you happy?
If you Google “find your passion” you’ll come up with lots of tips to help you answer the question, "What am I passionate about?" These are all really great ideas, too; and being able to answer "What makes me happy" is an important step in actually discovering what you're passionate about.
Somehow, people still struggle to nail down what their passions are, despite the bevy of information about how to be happy in life online.
So, if everyone is looking for their passion and there are tons of people telling you how to find your passion, why hasn't everyone found happiness by now?
Why is it so hard to find? The answer is simple: You’re looking in the wrong place.
Here are 4 things you must know about how to find your passion and embrace happiness:
1. Passion is not something you "find."
It is not something you find, like at the end of the rainbow. You haven’t lost your passions somewhere along the way so that now you need to rediscover them.
They’ve always been with you, and they've grown and evolved along the way.
You can’t find your passion by thinking about it. Passion lives in your heart, not your head. Passions flow underneath what you are doing. They go deep, like an underground river, flowing through your life.
They show up when you are moving and doing, immersing yourself in wholehearted living. They are a force of nature, moving you, spurring you on, driving you to keep going, to keep exploring and expanding.
As a child, I dreamt of being a teacher. I would set up my dolls in classrooms. When I was about twelve, I started a “school” in my basement, inviting the neighbor kids to come.
I was not satisfied to play school, I had to teach them something new. As an adult, I became a teacher and taught for twenty years.
I always thought that my passion was teaching, but now I believe that my true passion was deeper, and teaching was the container to hold and release that deeper passion.
The passion that compelled me to teach was an intense desire to help people realize their true potential and walk fully in it. That passion burned like a fire in my belly.
2. Passion isn't something you do; it's what drives you.
I got fired up when my students really learned something. When the light went on in their eyes and they knew they got it!
When they grew a little bit more confident in themselves and when they saw the value of who they are, that excited me and drove me to be the best teacher I could.
It motivated me to spend hours on lessons, grading papers, and setting up my classroom. I didn’t like that part (grading and lesson planning), but I was willing to endure it so that I could satisfy my passion.
Passion is defined in the dictionary as, "... an intense, driving, or overmastering feeling or conviction." It's synonymous with intense emotion that compels you to action.
Ask yourself why you are fired up, why something is so important to you that you feel that intense emotion compelling you to action, and you’ll find your passion.
But there is another aspect to passion that many people overlook.
3. Passion can be discovered in pain.
The origin of the word “passion” comes from the Latin "pati" which means “to suffer.” The Passion of Christ refers to His suffering and death on the cross.
Look to your pain to discover your passions; to your greatest struggles and trials. What is important to you that emerges out of the battles you have fought and the hard work and pain you have willingly endured?
Often, it is in your greatest struggles that your passions are refined and strengthened.
If you look deep enough, you’ll see that it’s your passion that keeps you going even when you’re exhausted. You’ll keep fighting even when you’re under attack.
You're willing to suffer loss and hardship and go through intense struggles when you are passionate about something.
Passions will drive you to find ways around, through, or over obstacles. If you’re not passionate about something, obstacles will stop you.
The stronger your passion is, the more determined you will be when you encounter obstacles.
4. You must work hard to embrace your passion.
Your passion has been within you this whole time, and you missed it because you were looking somewhere else. Your passions are there, underneath the surface.
It’s not about “finding" your passion as much as it is about “uncovering" your passion.
You do that by looking at your heart, to that river of strength flowing underneath all that you do, to the fire in your belly that gets stirred up about certain things, and to the things you’ve suffered and the pain you’ve endured without giving up.
If you look there, you’ll find what you’ve never lost — your passion. And once you discover what it is, then you'll be able to find happiness in all you do, no matter what.
Janelle Anderson is a professional certified coach who helps women over forty quit their "day jobs" and get a fresh start doing something that makes them truly happy. To find out how she can help you, visit her website here.