Really, why is it?
If you’re anything like me you’ve probably seen numerous blogs and tons of articles on the subject of realising, finding, discovering, or even re-discovering your passion. Everyone is looking for happiness in their life; doing what they love surrounded by the people who’s company you enjoy. And in order to achieve this goal you’ve at least to know what it is that you love to do, right? No wonder that so many people have written (and are still writing, like me) about this subject; Everyone is trying to figure this out, making your audience huge!
How come then, that with so many people writing about the subject most of us are still looking for it? There are tons of great tips out there, but somehow we’re still looking for our passion. Every once in a while I tell myself: “It can’t possibly be this hard!?! I know what I like to do right? I should know what I enjoy doing or what energizes me?!” It turns out that, for me, it doesn’t seem to be that simple after all. Great, right? pff..

Mental meltdown

Back when I was a fulltime student I wasn’t paying too much attention to this whole “passion-thing”. I just had some classes to attend, some assignments to hand in and some house-work to manage but apart from that I was completely free to do what I wanted. Whenever I felt like going and have a beer with mates downtown, I would. When I felt like swimming, renting a canoe, go running, play world of warcraft (yes, I confess ) I would.
But now that university life is over and you have a “career” to consider, it suddenly seems to be a lot more complicated. The time of “just doing it” seems to be over and every decision tends to move towards internal conflict; “I should do it because..”, “No, wait! What if this happens?”, “How will that effect the future?”, “Does it pay enough”, “Am I not sacrificing too much?” – …. Mental meltdown….
Suddenly everything is supposed to be an exact science with fixed variables like payout, growth potential, distance from home, working hours and joy doing it.

Variable?

Did you see it happen? Joy is now nothing more then a variable in the equation of picking a carreer. A variable means exactly that, it’s variable; you are allowing it to vary in relation to the other factors involved. Why on earth is joy suddenly a variable instead of a constant? Could it be that people are often dissatisfied with their work (and possibly life in general) because they let joy become a variable instead of a constant factor in their life? I think that may very well be the case!
In fact, isn’t that what doing something that you’re passionate about feels like? When you are working on your passion, joy is a constant not a variable. Pursuing your passion results in constant joy, con-stant.

Then what it is?

So is swimming my passion? No, I just enjoy it once in a while. Was world of warcraft my passion (I don’t play anymore), no it wasn’t because I didn’t constant joy from it. Sometimes it even drained me and caused frustration; definitely not a passion. I should really ask myself what it is I never get bored with, what has kept me fascinated for years without boring me. Not just something I like occasionally, but something I love constantly.
My search continues,… but now with better defined terms.

I’ll keep posting on the progress in this area. But I’d also like to know what’s your passion, how you realised it what it was and if you have any tips for others. Please leave a comment and help others out by sharing your experiences!

Until next time, keep moving forward!

Good morning everyone. Most of you will still be asleep at the moment I’m writing this. So why on earth am I awake then? Well, to be honest, my girlfriend had to catch a train at 5:45 so I can’t pretend I didn’t do this entirely on purpose. But I just felt compelled to share something with you that I’m experiencing at the moment.

I had gotten up, showered and eaten breakfast by the time it was 5:30, in order to get my girlfriend on her way on time. And then I started realizing that I was completely wide awake and feeling energetic over 1.5 hour before I normally set my own alarm.
This is great! While the world is still sleeping I’m already up and about, able to do things! Steve Pavlina has written some great stuff about how to become an early riser, but this must be what he was actually talking about. Not so much waking up and getting yourself in motion but the actual feeling of wanting to take on the world even before you’d have normally set your alarm.

What to do with this extra time?
Off course I can’t do everything before 7AM like vacuum-cleaning, play loud music (neighbors) or go shopping for that matter. Yet, I can still get started on things I would have normally done during daytime. Or, even better; Things that I would have wanted to do during the daytime but can’t, due to the fact that I’m at work then. (Like writing this blog for example)

What would you do if you had 1.5 of extra time each morning? Shower longer or get started on work early? Go outside and run for 30 minutes or catch up on a tv-show you’ve missed? Whatever you do, it’s just great to be able to do so, right?

Will Smith on Work-Ethic: “While the other guy’s sleeping,… I’m working”

Living life can be tough at times, we’ve all been there at a certain time. Sometimes it’s a little setback, other times it just seems like you’re fighting an up-hill battle. You’ve got tons of things to keep in mind and take care of in order to make your life run smoothly. And let’s be honest, we always get through the tough times and navigate our way back into calmer waters. And this is just your life, one life. Imagine how tough it would be if you’d be living two lives!?

You might say: “Two lives, that’s rediculous. Nobody does that”. But actually you may pretty well be doing so without even noticing it anymore.

Multiple lives?

You know how people always tell you to “just be yourself”? Do we even know what “being yourself” means to begin with? Some us play so many roles that it’s easy to get lost in realising who you really are. You can behave one way around your highschool buddies and behave another way around they people working with you at the office. You can act like father or a child, a friend or a lover. It’s easy to let these roles drift apart and having them develop into lives of their own. The roles you play in life start turning into different personalities of you that are no longer compatible with the others. (Imagine mixing a night with your college buddies and your collegues; you’re used to act in two completely different ways)

The birthday dillema

I remember a couple of years ago I wanted to celebrate my birthday. At the time I had several groups of friends that were just “different” from one-another. I got along great with all of ‘m, a part of me felt comfortable with each of the groups but putting them together in one room wouldn’t be the best idea. So, in order to celebrate with all of them I ended up celebrating my birthday 4 times that year, three nights with different groups of friends and one day with my family. In retrospect, it was rediculous! I liked all these people yet I wasn’t showing each of them the complete picture of me, I was just showing them one side of me.

Putting your personal puzzle back together

The birthday-issue was a real eye-opener for me at the time. I realised how much time, energy and even money I was putting into playing these different roles. I was trying to juggle the different pieces of me instead of putting together the pieces and “being” them as a collective. Using a metaphore: “A completed jigsaw puzzle is much nicer to look at then a heap of its pieces”.  So why not show people the pieces after you put them together, the complete you. Even though it will take a bit of courage to show them something you fear may put them off, they payoff will be much greater. You can focus your energy on living just one life instead of splitting it. Focus all that power into the one life and prepare for some amazing things to happen to you, enjoying your reclaimed freedom to express yourself as you are.

Now go out, complete your puzzle and focus your power to enhance your life!
(And follow me on Twitter)

Do you remember the last time a piece of music gave you goosebumps? Was it a great soundtrack while watching a movie or some lyrics that sounded almost as they had been written just for you? Countless styles of music have emerged these days, something you might say. But one thing that all of them share is that they seem to be able to touch the people that listen to them on a far deeper -almost primal- level. You may be brought to tears, feel like you are in love, get inspired, get fired up to make a change or even compelled to destroy the next thing that gets in your way. Somehow music is able to tap into our being on a much deeper level then words can.

Getting in a state of mind

So now that I just told you something you already knew, let’s start working with it. What does a specific genre of music put you up to? Would you wake up better to a smooth jazz record or some hardrock tunes? I guess most of you would prefer waking up to some slower, softer sounds. But how about tearing down a wall in your house or a tree in your garden?
I’m not sure if you have been following the 2010 olympics or not, but one thing I noticed (especially with this post growing in my mind) was how those athletes were preparing for their events. Pretty much all of them were wearing headphones and using visualization to get into the state of mind that would allow them to perform record-breaking feats of strength and agility. They were trying to condition themselves so that they would surpass themselves in the hope of that being enough to surpass their competitors.

What are you preparing for?

Are you feeling slow when you actually want to go fast? Or are you nervously twitching when you actually wish you could slow down? Do you want to construct or destroy things?
Go find a piece of music that matches your desired state of mind and put it on, on your stereo or your mp3 player. I remember Steve Pavlina talking about “if you want to become something, you have to radiate the energy of the thing you want to become”. This is closely related to a Zen saying I heard from Wan Qi Kim some years back: “Ever thing is what it is because it has the energy to be that thing”. Music is a tool that can help you to start radiating that desired energy faster and thus becoming the thing you desire to be.

Feel what works

There’s no one genre that works for something. Maybe a reggae record wants you to chill out and smoke some pot or maybe it makes you want to cause havoc with a sledgehammer. It’s completely unimportant what piece of music it is, as long as it gets you in the state of mind you want to be in.

On a personal note;
I love to listen to John Mayer records when I want to slow down and relax for a quiet dinner. But highly contrasting I can enjoy the super-fast, energetic tunes from a Power Metal album to get my ass moving when I’m feeling slow. I enjoy some classic Japanese pan-flute tunes to quiet my mind for my meditations. I’ve given classical music a try for studying purposes but it never really did it for me. I enjoy late summer nights in my hammock with some reggae music and get shivers listening to heroic adventure movie soundtracks. Owh, and if I flip on an Enya record I’m sleeping like a baby in less than 15 minutes, lol

I hope these short examples show you that there’s no right and no wrong way to go. No matter how diverse your “tastes” in music may be, what’s important is that it works for YOU.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time you’re craving for a P.G. Snack