Does Following Your Passion Even Really Matter?

Imagine waking up at a time when you want to wake up. A time when you are feeling fully rested. Imagine your morning going exactly the way you want it. Feeling really content with where you are in your life right now. Imagine being fully energised by the activities of your day. If that is you, well done! If it’s not, read on. 

In 2014, I quit my teaching job. It was more out of necessity than anything else. But I quit it nonetheless. I did so without any fore planning or consideration for anything but my immediate happiness. That resulted in a difficult eighteen months to two years. But that act of “bravery”, “stupidity”, “faith”, whatever you want to call it, resulted in a complete transformation of my life. I stepped off the path I was on and onto another. It wasn’t a complete change in direction but an adjustment. 

I always thought teaching was my passion. I feel very fulfilled working with people and in particular, helping people grow. However, I was caught up in what that looked like to me. Once I stepped away from “normal” classroom teaching, an amazing thing happened. I realised I could fulfil my passion for teaching but in a way that suited the way I wanted to live. 

Following your passion isn’t just about doing what you enjoy doing. It’s also about doing it the way you want to do it. We all get caught up in the what but very rarely consider the how. Understanding my ideal day resulted in a realisation that there was a disconnect between what I was passionate about and how I was engaging with that passion. 

Yes, following your passion is critical if you want to feel fulfilled in your life and be ultimately happy. Happiness isn’t something you can strive for on its own. Happiness is an outcome. It is the result of all the components of your life coming together in the ways that make you feel fulfilled. To achieve happiness, you must establish what it is that makes you happy and improve those things.  

How to Follow Your Passion

• To follow your passion, first establish what it is that makes you happy. There may be a few things. If so, that’s great. But in most cases, you’ll need choose one or else you’ll overwhelm yourself. 

• Secondly, consider your ideal day. This is a really fun activity and every time I do this activity I feel super energised and motivated to keep working towards this dream. First write down your ideal day from a macro point-of-view. Write in general terms what your morning, afternoon and night will look like each day. Then write it from a micro point-of-view. Be specific with what occurs each hour in your typical ideal day. This is an activity where you should dream big. 

• Once you have established what your main passion is and how you would love to spend your ideal day, contemplate how you can marry those two up. For me it was creating an online business because it gave me the freedom to realise my ideal day. I still get to teach but I can do so in a way that allows me to live my ideal day. This is a process whereby you might have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable and be a little bit coachable.

• The last point requires that you take some kind of risk. How you define that risk is up to you but those who define not taking the leap as more painful than taking the leap, usually take the leap. And guess what, so long as you keep your eyes open the net will always appear. 

You must be open to opportunities. Since resigning, I’ve gone back to relief teaching every now and then for some extra money (and I love it), but I’m doing two other things that I never thought I would have the opportunity to do or had ever considered. That is part-time work at the Northern Territory Institute of Sport (a place I wanted to work at over a decade ago when I left uni) and casual lecturing in Health and Physical Education at Charles Darwin University. Those two opportunities have opened up other opportunities. If I’d not kept my eyes open, I may have missed those opportunities. Plus, I was able to decide if they were right for me when I related them back to my ideal day. 

So, if you want to feel fulfilled in your life, you must follow your passion. At the same time as following your passion, if you want to feel truly fulfilled, you must acknowledge what your ideal day looks like to you and marry the two. 

What is your passion? What is your ideal day? I’m really looking forward to reading the responses to this one! Leave your answers in the comments section below.