Prefer to read? The transcript is below 🙂

Hey/hello/bonjour/hola, it’s Iris and welcome to the first ever video on my brand new YouTube channel.

I teach people how to find their passion, and make it their work, so I thought it only made sense to answer a question I see most people struggling with, and that is: 

“how do I find my passion?” 

But before I share that with you, please like this video if you like this video (or that I’ve launched my youtube channel) and subscribe to my channel. It’ll help me to grow my channel, AND it tells me exactly what type of content you’re finding helpful.

So, let’s answer that beast of a question shall we? 

I’ve done a bit of research around this, and have found that this question is often answered like this: “Find that one thing that you really love doing, or that one thing you loved doing when you were younger, and then go and do that”. 

But what if you’ve tried that, and it’s just not working. Nothing’s coming up – other than things you love doing in your spare time, like travelling, running, reading books or going to festivals with your friends. 

You don’t have that ONE thing that you really love, that you can or want to pursue or turn into a career. 

Or… maybe you’re at the other end of the spectrum. You’ve got two, three or four things that you love doing, and you’re not sure how to choose the ONE thing you love the most without regretting it later. 

That’s what I’ve seen with the people I’ve worked with – they either feel like they have no passion or they have too many. 

The problem here is that we put too much emphasis on this ONE passion we should have.

This ONE thing that we love doing more than anything else. And if we figure this out, then all will be good. We’ll have a wonderful, fulfilling and exciting career. 

BUT, there isn’t much evidence to support that this is how passion works. 

Most people aren’t born with a pre-existing, innate, passion, that’s waiting to be discovered.

Sure, there are a lucky few who do know from a young age what it is that they’re passionate about, and they know that that is what they’re meant to do with their life.

But for most people, that’s not the case. 

So are they then doomed? 

No, absolutely not. 

The key here is to change how we think about passion. 

It’s not something that’s waiting to be discovered. Or something to be figured out. 

A passion is something we develop over time.

The starting point is something that we’re interested in. Something that we like to read about, talk about, learn more about. 

It could be a specific topic, a cause, a business idea, a problem or issue you see in the world.

Something that makes you think: “that’s interesting, I’d like to learn more about it, explore it further, and perhaps make a contribution to on a professional level.”

That’s all – that’s your starting point for “finding your passion”. 

Once you’ve found something that you’re interested in, you simply start to follow it, and explore it, learn more about it. 

Now, how do you follow or explore an interest? 

Here are a few ideas of things you can do: 

1. Talk to people who work in this field or are experts in it

2. Sign up for a course, event or seminar to learn more about it (yes, you can do this during corona – tons of online courses, events or seminars)

3. Apply what you’ve learnt, by writing about it or sharing it with your friends, family or colleagues

4. Build skills in the field that you’re exploring, through side projects or joining relevant groups

The great thing about this is that you can follow or explore more than one interest, and after a while one of them might start to jump out as the thing you want to commit to professionally more than the other/others. 

So, there you have it…. my answer to that million-dollar questions…. how do i find my passion?. 

You don’t magically find it somewhere, you develop it. Start with something that you’re interested in, and then simply follow and explore it. 

Stop thinking that you have this one thing, this one passion, that’s waiting for you to be discovered. That’s not helpful and not the way passion works for most of us. 

Thank you so much for watching. 

If you liked this video, click that thumbs up button, subscribe and hit the bell next to it to get a notification of when I post new videos (which is every Wednesday). 

And finally, if you want to find out more about free online training that I offer to help you find (or develop) your passion, and make it your work, hop on over to irissmyth.com and sign up to receive my emails.

See you again next week!

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