Passion and Purpose

Passion and Purpose Drive Goals

Passion and purpose is the catalyst for our goals.  They are the means to achieve our goals.  If you can lock into your passion and your purpose you will be able to identify goals that are valuable.  We spend too much time setting goals and trying to reach goals that are not lined up with our passion and purpose.  This results in failure.

We set up goals that are socially acceptable, like getting a good job at a well established company with retirement and room for advancement.  We set goals that are safe, such as building that 2500 square foot home just like we always wanted.  We set goals that our family thinks are wise, like getting that masters degree, marrying a college graduate who wants to have two children and settling down close to the parents.  We set goals that look fine, but don’t make us feel fine.

Did the goals I listed out sound familiar?  Are they goals similar to what you have been trying to achieve? Well don’t worry.  Those goals are perfectly acceptable in this world, so don’t feel bad.  Just keep up the good work at being typical.  There is nothing wrong with that… for all of you anyway.  For me I need something different.

What Do You Need From Life?

I need to feel passion about what I do.  I need to feel like I am making a difference.  I need to feel like I am not doing what everyone else is doing, because it is not enough for me.   Read my article on why we fail at goal setting titled Why Goal Setting Fails and How to Succeed.  It will make you think differently about what you can accomplish.  You follow that with my article on optimism titled Choose Optimism and you will have a different outlook on life.  I point you in these directions because life has sucked some valuable concepts from your mind. Concepts that can set you free from being average.  Are you happy just getting by?  If not it’s because the way your living your life is not lined up with your passion and purpose.

Get in touch with your passion.  What do you love to do in life?  Ask this simple question – it’s not unique but it has value.  What would you do with your life if you had all the money you ever wanted.  If your answer is live on a permanent vacation on white sand beaches with waiters bringing you drinks all day long between the catered meals, visits to the spas, shopping sprees, and sail boating, then you have just realized why that question does not work.  A better question would be, if you had to make a living and I was willing to pay you six figures to do whatever you wanted (even if it was gardening, making pottery, teaching children how to write poetry, or something else that seemed financially impossible to make money at) what would you do.   Or put it this way, what do you love doing no matter how unlikely it is to make money at it?

You see, your passion is what you would do with your life if you could.  That is the intent of these questions.  There is not one question that will discover this for everyone.  It is a process.  It has taken me a long time to understand what my passion is, and do you want to know why it has taken so long?  I’ll tell you.  It has taken so long because I was focused on making a living, getting a bigger house, having a nice car, and getting a good retirement plan. All great things which no one would fault me for, but the truth is those are not my purpose nor my passion.  Those goals took me off track from my real passion and purpose.

Passion Supports Your Purpose

I want to help people become personally stronger.   I want to help people break free of being typical.  I want to teach people that they do not have to settle for where they are in life.  I want to encourage people to reach for more.  I want to help people find their purpose and passion and go for it.

That is my passion.   That is why I do this blog.  I want to bring hope to people that they can succeed.   They can pursue their passions.

My son went off to college.  At the end of the first year and after a going through the summer with several setbacks on scholarships he decided he was not going back to college.  He said, “I am going to pursue my music”.  Music is his passion.  From the time he was 15 years old he had a guitar attached to him.  He played constantly.  I support him in that decision.  He is living his dream and his passion.  He has a side job working at a restaurant, but he is playing music all the time.  He has no doubt that he will be making a living at music someday.  He has that child-like faith that he will succeed.  You can read about that in my article Why Goal Setting Fails and How to Succeed.

I am living my passion now.  I am working from home, have a consulting business, and writing these articles to help people.  I am a coach and mentor helping people get more out of their professional and personal lives.  I am teaching courses in project management.  Also, I teach a regular class at church – theology is another one of my passions.  I am on a religious quest to try to help people understand that they don’t know why they believe what they believe.    And, I love to write.  Writing is one of my favorite forms of communication.  I am doing everything I love to do.  And to top it all off, I have a happy marriage, a nice home, and am doing financially well.  You can live your passion and do well in the process.

So, my purpose is to help people look at life differently, to encourage people to learn and grow, to encourage people to live their passion and dreams.  I believe that God put me here for this purpose and I am living it.  What is your passion?  What is your purpose?

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Author: Jeff Harris

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Links
Why Goal Setting Fails and How to Succeed
Choose Optimism