Part of Kathy Caprino’s series “Finding Brave To Build a Happier Life and Career”
Recently, in my The Most Powerful You course, one participant asked the question, “Kathy, how do I find my passion? I want to build a career around my passion but I just can’t figure out what that is.”
I’ve seen throughout 17 years of career and leadership coaching with folks who deeply long to build more rewarding and meanginful careers they love — and from the process of transforming my own career from unhappy corporate executive to therapist to running a business as a coach, trainer, speaker, writer and podcaster — that this question is a vitally important one but the answer is not what people typically think it will be.
The truth is, you don’t “find” your passion through “searching” for it.
You ignite it from the inside out through three essential ways:
1) Deep internal examination and awareness
2) External empowering action that’s different from any action you’ve taken before, and
3) A powerful mindset shift that reframes the problem
Sadly, we’re not taught in school or any other time in our lives the essentials of building a rewarding and thrilling career, and many millions are muddling through, making painful mistakes and detours trying to get it right. I’ve discovered that there are 16 essential steps to doing just that. These are critical, sequential actions that need to be taken if you want to move from an unfulfilling, lack-luster (or miserable) professional life to one that makes you feel proud and excited to be alive, and one that allows you to make a significant positive difference in your work and leadership.
And it requires closing what I’ve seen are the 7 most damaging power gaps that negatively impact 98% of professional women and 90% of men today. If you are experiencing any of these power and confidence gaps (and 75% of women are facing three or more of these gaps at the same time), the “passion” you’re dreaming of will be far more elusive and difficult to experience.
It’s not a quick fix or an instant win, and many people just won’t commit to the work. It takes time, energy, self-reflection and self-growth, courage, and a willingness to see and do things differently from how you’ve been programmed since you were a child to approach life.
To get started, there are three fundamental steps to igniting passion within you (rather than searching for it outside of yourself) and then learning how to leverage that to build a happier career.
They are:
#1: Build an intimate relationship with yourself
When I became a therapist, I began to see how very little most people truly know about themselves. And in my work now, I see the same thing. And I have to admit that back in my 20’s through my 30’s when I was a corporate professional, I had very little self-awareness.
So many people today can’t answer the most basic yet vital questions such as:
1) What are your natural talents, gifts and skills and the accomplishments you’re most proud of?
2) What’s special and different about you, that helps you stand out from others?
3) What outcomes do you love supporting?
4) What jobs have you loved the most and hated the most, and why?
5) What are your non-negotiables and your values and standards of integrity that you won’t compromise on?
6) What have you done in your life and what experiences have you engaged in that made your heart sing — that made you feel very alive?
(For a full list of essential questions we all should answer before we make any career decisions or moves, and that will help you gain greater awareness of yourself and what you want for your future, download my free Career Path Self-Assessment).
If you want a truly rewarding career that ignites passion within you, or if you want more passion and thrill in your personal life, first you need to get to know yourself much better than you do today. Uncover what you love in life, what you reject, what makes you mad in the world, what lights you up, the natural talents and skills you want to leverage more fully, the outcomes you care about, the kinds of people you respect, and more.
As a start, answer these 11 questions and check out my TEDx talk “Time to Brave Up” for a powerful exercise to identify what I call “the 20 Facts of You” – the 20 most exciting accomplishments of your entire life, and the key skills that you possess that allowed those accomplishments to be possible.
#2: Stop looking too far down the chain of destiny
Winston Churchill made a statement that I believe holds true about our careers –
He said:
It’s a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.
It’s not effective (and you’ll make some big mistakes and your decisions will fail you) if you try to choose a career direction just from the mere idea or sound of it – to hang all your hopes of success onto an idea that’s never been tested for you.
You have to grasp the first link. I call that mistake “glomming onto the wrong form (of a job or career) before understanding the essence of what you really want.”
For example, so many professionals tell me they want to dump their current corporate careers and:
- Become an author and write a bestselling book
- Run a bed and breakfast or sail around the world for a year
- Become an actor or singer
- Work in a non-profit or academic institution
- Work as a teacher
- Become a lawyer
But the truth is, most of these people have no idea what the physical, living reality and identities of these jobs and experiences are, and if they’d really be a fit. (Usually, they aren’t.)
Secondly, you’ve invested a lot of time in your current career. Are you sure that chucking the entire baby out with the bathwater is what’s right for you now, or are there elements that you could preserve and/or pivot that would make you happy?
Start thinking more deeply about the why behind these desired jobs that you admire. Do you want to be a respected author so you can finally feel validated and recognized for your views, or because you want to make a difference to people in a bigger way? Do you want to become a lawyer because you think that will bring status and money to you, or perhaps you can finally advocate for a particular cause and help people who are struggling to overcome a specific challenge? Do you want to sing or act because you are deeply missing being involved in creative activities?
Look more deeply and uncover the “essence” of what you really want, and then start “trying on” new initiatives through small microsteps that will enable you to physically experience that essence directly. Interview people doing that kind of work, or volunteer or intern at an organization that will allow you to put your toe in the water and immerse yourself in that career identity. These steps will help you refine and more fully understand the direction you truly want to pursue.
Before looking too far ahead and saying “I think this is right for me” without having any clue if it is, start with one tiny but brave (yes, scary) step to move toward doing something that lights you up and makes your heart beat faster. Then another, and another step. Pursue a hobby you used to love, support a cause that matters to you, take a class, etc. – engage in one action each week that makes you feel more alive. Don’t worry now if it’s going to be your ultimate “career.” Just start doing something that will allow your passion to grow from the inside and begin to see how you change from it.
#3: Finally, strengthen yourself and be prepared and excited to “fail”
To build an amazing, passion-filled career, people need much stronger boundaries than they have today, and they have to embrace risk and failure, and even welcome it. For that, we need strong, well-formed boundaries and deep self-respect and self-love.
Boundaries
We need to learn how to say “YES!” to what we want, and “NO” to what is no longer tolerable or possible. We must also separate from people and things that are draining of our life’s precious energy and time. And we need to start prioritizing this journey of self-discovery and self-actualization over so much else that we’ve engaged in that’s exhausting and demoralizing us every day.
If you can’t say “no” to what isn’t working, than you won’t be able to say “yes” to what you want to create.
I’ve found that so many people who have lost touch with their inner joy and passion and have deeply unsatisfying careers are what I call “perfectionistic overfunctioners.” They are enmeshed with others and wedded to living life in a way that puts their needs, wants and desires last. These folks are habituated to being overwhelmed and exhausted with all their responsibilities to others and they find it impossible to make time for what they want. It actually scares them to put themselves first. And that often was trained into them through their upbringing.
Understand you will have to embrace some degree of “failure” and risk if you want to live a thrilling, rewarding life
Finally, I’ve seen over and over that professionals who feel extremely stuck in unfulfilling work also have a deep aversion to the idea of “failing.” Often they were raised by parents who rejected the idea of failure, and in fact, it wasn’t “allowed.”
That is a very damaging way to raise a child – that they have to stay within such constrained rules and “lines” for their life, that they can never feel comfortable or excited to stretch, grow, fall down, and reach far beyond where they are today.
The truth is, if you won’t allow yourself to fail, or if you believe “failure” or any degree of risk is unacceptable, you will stunt your own growth and block your experience of passion and thrill in both life and work.
Passion, as I have observed it, is that deeply powerful feeling that springs from your heart and your spirit, that makes you feel alive, helping you understand (even for a second) your place in the world and how you uniquely embody that place. And you are grateful for it.
It can be a momentary feeling, or a guiding experience that is with you often, forging a path for you. It can arise from a deep desire to be helpful with your talents and abilities, or from an experience of deep satisfaction in using your talents in service of others.
On the other hand, passion can emerge as an immense feeling of connection to something you cannot see, feel or touch. Passion can come when you’re so deeply moved (or even angry and rageful) about something you see in the world — an injustice or a wrong that moves you to action — where you know that you can no longer stay silent or apathetic one second longer.
One question to ask yourself, if you find you’re in constant pursuit of “passion” in your work-life and career is this:
When was the last time you’ve felt passion in your life, and what was happening that generated it?
If it’s been months, even years, that you’ve felt any sense of passion in your life, it’s time to make some big changes. A life without having your heart and soul moved is one that is often without joy, thrill and true fulfillment.
Start strengthening yourself now, and “find brave.” Stretch beyond who you are now. Do something that’s just one step closer to a direction that might be exciting, even if you’re not sure what that is yet. Just ACT.
Finally, learn how to deeply love and value yourself and your own needs, wants and talents. Otherwise, you will simply continue to struggle in pursuit of true joy and fulfillment in life and work.
To build the bravery and confidence to land your ideal role and/or pursue a new ideal career direction you’ll love, join me in my 6-session Career & Leadership Breakthrough private coaching program this month. For additional confidence-boosting support, take my 8-week online course The Most Powerful You, based on my latest book The Most Powerful You: 7 Bravery-Boosting Paths to Career Bliss.
