All our lives we are told to find our passion. Don’t settle, they said. But how?
Is it some type of inner compass that we ought to follow but don’t?
Do you wake up one day and get inspired?
Do you try everything and find it only then?
Like you, I wasn’t satisfied with a lot of these answers.
All the questions above play a role in finding your life’s task.
But I find that there is an acid test that you can use today on anything you are pursuing right now that will more or less determine your passion, which is:
What would you do everyday even if you were failing?
I actually asked my Instagram audience this very question and there was one common answer.
“Football”
Given the fact that most of my audience were young guys, they said they wouldn’t mind practicing football over and over again even if they kept losing to the opposing team.
Now what is something that you found yourself doing again and again regardless of outcome?
Something that you enjoy doing because the work is enough to keep you satisfied, not the result.
You may be closer to your passion than you think.
It’s not easy to find something that doesn’t dampen your enthusiasm even if you fail again and again.
As Winston Churchill once said,
Success is the ability to go from one failure to another without loss of enthusiasm.
Think:
Much like a soldier is asked what would he or she die for, you are asked what are you willing to fail for?
Wow, that was brilliant! I really like that question, and I’d say that the one thing I’d continue to do regardless of failure is playing the guitar. Very thought-provoking, and I think that’s something I’m going to start recommending to others too! I’ll link to your blog of course, if you don’t mind me doing so. Thanks for sharing this Ben!
Glad you found it helpful! Feel free to link back to my blog 🙂 Cheers.
Hey Ben, thanks for checking out my blog and connecting with me. I really like your perspective in this entry, if you’re willing to continue doing something despite failing at it then you’ve definitely found your passion.