Creating Passion

Stop waiting for a perfect purpose to hand you a feeling.

It is not your job's job to make you happy. That is your job.

I say the same thing about your husband, your wife, your boss, and the place you live. We put so much pressure on circumstances to provide an emotion that comes from our minds.

Passion is one of those emotions. You don't have to search the world for the one thing that will finally hand it to you. You can learn to create it.

Stop asking the circumstance to provide passion

A student told me she had no passion for her work and wanted to find her passion somewhere else.

I recommended that she start by learning to generate passion in her current job. Once she understood the skill, she could apply it to something else.

I see students become life coaches because they see other coaches looking passionate. Then they expect the career to supply the feeling. That expectation can smother the joy they wanted to experience.

I see something similar with my son and golf. He has an amazing talent. But when he expects golf to provide a particular level of success, anything less becomes a reason to put himself down.

There is a spark there. Expecting it to be a bigger fire immediately can crush it.

Passion is an emotion created by thinking

What does passion feel like to you? Enthusiasm? Excitement? A drive to do something? Where do you feel it in your body?

To practice creating an emotion, you need to recognize it.

Then look at the thinking behind it. When you first fell in love, passion may have seemed effortless. But compare your thoughts about that person then with your thoughts now. The thinking was there even if you weren't deliberately supervising it.

The same is true of work. If you constantly think you dread your job, your clients are annoying, and you are tired of the whole thing, notice what those thoughts create.

Thoughts create feelings. Feeling passion comes from thinking thoughts that generate passion.

Write down what you are thinking now

Start with a thought download. Give yourself five minutes to write without editing or judging what comes up.

Don't pick up your pencil to decide whether a thought is relevant. Let yourself see what is actually there.

My student's list included thoughts about disliking her work, doing it too long, and having fallen into it. Those thoughts created dread and discontent. It wasn't surprising she didn't feel passionate.

Seeing the thoughts on paper helped us identify what she had been practicing.

Let yourself imagine without the objections

I asked her what she might want to do. At first, she kept stopping herself with questions about whether she could do it, whether it would work, and whether she would like it.

So I asked her to imagine she could do it successfully and would like it. Removing those stipulations gave her room to dream.

She described a business she would love to build with someone she loved, and how it would help people.

Then we imagined it was successful and she felt amazing. What would she be thinking?

Her thinking changed. She could see thoughts about the value of the business, how she would approach it, and what she would do. Her brain could generate those ideas once we stopped rehearsing the reasons it couldn't work.

Practice the thoughts that create the feeling

The part of my work I feel most passionate about is studying, researching, and creating tools.

When I have a day to do that, I think about how much I want to learn, write, teach, and share. I think the work matters and that the people listening will benefit.

Those thoughts create excitement. That excitement drives action.

When I recorded this episode, I was on my way to meet my friends Jodi and Erica for a birthday getaway in Half Moon Bay. I had just written the outline and was so excited to share it that I stopped at the office to record before leaving.

I generated that experience through my thoughts. Then recording and helping people gave me more reason to want to do it again.

Give yourself at least a hundred practices

In the beginning, new thinking isn't effortless. You haven't made it familiar yet.

It is like learning a language. At first, it is awkward and tedious. You don't know how to say what you want to say. Practice makes it easier.

I tell my students to give themselves a minimum of a hundred practices. Most people want to try for three minutes and decide it isn't working.

Give yourself a hundred attempts at thinking the thoughts and feeling the emotion. Give yourself room to fail at generating passion while you learn.

One student's son learned to ride a unicycle by allowing himself the twelve hours of failure he had been told it would take. He didn't treat each unsuccessful attempt as a reason to stop.

You can give yourself that same permission to practice.

Teach your brain something new

Your mind may be efficient at frustration and dread. It will want to return to them because they are familiar and take less effort.

Notice that pull without deciding it means you can't change. You are teaching yourself a new pattern.

Create the thoughts. Practice feeling the passion. Act from it. Repeat.

You can find work that makes it easier to generate passion, as I have. But the work inside still belongs to you. I don't expect my career to provide it without my participation.

You can learn to speak the language of passion. Give yourself the practice it takes.