|
What are your biggest passions? "I don't really have
any," Erica replied. Erica is studying for her PhD in
microbiology and is about to cross the finish line after almost
10 years of intense work. She finds lab research too repetitive--
"There's little room for creativity and imagination, and
it's too removed from making a real impact. If I knew what it
was really like I would have taken a different path. Erica is
not as in love with biology as she hoped to be; glumly she said,
"I married a blind date."
Nailing down which of your passions to pursue as a career
can often be tricky. Many people would like to feel passion for
their work, but struggle with defining just what their real passions
are. Some say they don't have any, while others say they have
too many to narrow things down. And sadly, some don't believe
it's possible to get paid for their passions, saying that they're
too far-fetched and hard to get to. It goes without saying that
the majority of us would like more excitement in our daily work.
Picking a specific passion that will bring long-term fulfillment,
and not fizzle out, is where most of us get stuck.
Whether you have too few passions, too many, or have tried
a passion that waned, the first step in raising the fog to make
clear choices for your future is to examine your vocabulary.
Now and then we get things we don't want, or loose interest
in after a short time. Studies by social psychologists show that
human beings are not very good a predicting their long-term happiness.
Whether we're buying a house, car, or choosing a city and neighborhood
to live in, we often find ourselves feeling let down or neutral
soon after the goal is achieved. What we imagine will make us
happy is often overly romanticized. When our forecasts are not
sharply visualized or thoroughly tested, the unexpected "reality"
comes to us as a surprise. Like falling in love on a blind date,
we gloss over the possible negatives and only focus on the positive
facts. Let's take Erica's example above. As a teenager, she dreamt
of being a scientist, making discoveries to benefit mankind.
She imagined herself inventing cures for diseases and making
breakthroughs in medicine. Then one day, reality hit. What it
takes to make discoveries is meticulous experimenting, documenting
every step, and living in a laboratory with no windows. Her vague
fantasy of "making discoveries" did not include the
daily rigors of lab work. Her vision of the future left out the
fine details. The words she used to describe her career were
too "fat."
Having a passionate career, one you'll want to keep, takes
"lean" words. For example, if I say I have an animal
for a house pet, your mind can conjure up a few ideas, but still
not be sure what I mean. Hmm, does he have a lizard, a gold fish,
a snake, or a cat? However, if I say I have a dog, things get
somewhat clearer. In even leaner terms, I actually have a friendly,
highly energetic chocolate Labrador retriever that loves to swim
and fetch tennis balls. Now, there is no more guesswork. Leaning
up fat, abstract words is a powerful career design tool. Before
making big choices, check to see if you can first see, hear,
taste, touch, and smell all the daily details of your choice
in your mind's eye. When you use lean and sensate words to describe
what you want, you're more likely to get exactly that. Before
you apply this tool to defining your passions, let's examine
the anatomy of a passion.
Passions are intimately tied to the human emotional system.
Webster's definition of passion is as follows: "Powerful
feeling. Love, sexual desire, lust, the object of such love and
desire, great enthusiasm, anger, rage." Having a passion
is a matter of "feeling" an emotion for something.
Our emotions get more intense when we experience life first hand.
If you're passionate about making love, it's probably because
you've tried it. Reading a book or watching a movie might give
you clues as to possible passions, but you still have to test
them. Once a passion is tested, your emotions will speak for
themselves. Passions are "experienced," and are part
of being a living breathing human. You'll know one way or the
other once you've tried something you're curious about. With
this, there are ways to narrow things down to begin test driving
possible passions. If you don't have any strong emotions for
a specific career field yet, then it's likely because you haven't
done enough exploring. Following are several factors that play
a significant role in spurring what we feel passionate about.
Natural Ability:
When we experience a "passion," we're often in a situation
where our innate ability and personality are being engaged. At
birth, each of us is endowed with a unique set of aptitudes and
talents that help us excel in certain areas. Growing up, our
stronger inborn abilities are often tested through trying lots
of different activities. Take a moment to remember a fun experience
where you stood out among the crowd without trying very hard.
Did you feel like a "natural" with little training
required? Passionate feelings usually arise when we excel in
activities and subject areas that come naturally and easily to
us. People with a love for playing sports often have a natural
talent in the strength, balance, and body coordination. People
with strong intuition and a fast moving imagination often say
they have a passion for reading and watching movies; they dream
a lot. Underlying their daydreams are talents for imagining whole
new worlds, where they often excel as writers, artists, and storytellers.
If you're unsure of your natural talent, sophisticated aptitude
testing is now available to help you better understand how you're
innate abilities work together.
Exposure & Experimentation:
Our immediate environment exposes us to activities and ideas
that shape our career landscape. For example, many people talk
of passions developed early in childhood that were influenced
by their parents, locally based industries and associated professions,
and geographical terrain. People who grow up in Florida may develop
a passion for water sports like wind surfing and scuba diving,
yet have no idea whether they'd like to snow ski like those who
are live in Vermont. People from the Los Angeles area often see
film making and acting as an exciting possibility for their future,
while those who grew up in Manhattan may see careers in business
and the stock market as a reachable passion. I grew up near Pittsburgh,
PA, where 25% of my high school class went on to major in engineering.
Many of our fathers worked in coal mines and steel mills--since
their supervisors were engineers, this was considered a dream
job in comparison to heavy labor. Engineering was one of the
few viable possibilities on our radar screen. Being an actor,
stockbroker, or career coach was not part of our vocabulary.
Many people who say they don't have passions often have inborn
talents and personalities that do not fit the career fields and
hobbies they were initially exposed to, or have not learned how
to stretch their personal reality map to include the world beyond
their hometown. The world is a smaller place now, especially
with the help of the World Wide Web. If you're unsure of what
you'd love to do, get busy exposing yourself to new ideas, people,
places, and things. Before you begin exploring your untested
passions and interests, let's sharpen your definition of passion
further.
As we go through life we learn experientially about what lights
us up. Our inborn talents, personality, and environment help
point the way and provide opportunities to try things and see
what sticks. Sometimes we have a lightening strike; however,
lasting passions are largely "formed" through experimentation.
If you don't stick your toe in the water, you'll never know if
you want to dive in. The philosopher Nietzsche wrote, "He
who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and
walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying."
To focus in on passions you'd like to test-drive, create the
following lists. Remember to use lean words (see, hear, feel
data) in your descriptions.
- Broad Interests:
list all interests that are occasional
fun activities and/or topics of discussion at the local café,
but are recognized by you as not interesting enough to engage
in or think about everyday.
- Very
Strong Interests:
list all the interests that you
pay closer attention to, but don't know enough about to declare
a significant passion.
- Big
Passions:
list all your childhood passions, forgotten
passions, current passions, major hobbies, fields of study that
fascinate you, world or local community problems that you're
currently acting on, topics that you're willing to put your neck
on the line for.
- Untested
Passions:
list all the untested activities and/or
problems you think might become a passion, or consider important
enough to be engaged in, topics and fields of study that your
read about frequently or find fascinating from a distance, hobbies
you've been fantasizing to try someday.
Prioritize each list above in order of importance. Review
each list and circle the interests and passions that are hot
enough for you to consider as a career path or part of your life's
work. Put these selected few on a new list called, "Passions that might become
my career." Now you've got a short list to begin
test-driving. Create a project to explore the top 3 passions
on this list; read about them, talk to people doing them, take
a class to try them, get close to where these passions exist
in the real world. Be patient, keep trying things on your list
until something sticks. As Albert Einstein found, "I think
and think for months, for years. Ninety-nine times the conclusion
is false. The hundredth time, I am right."
|
