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It's All About Passion and Purpose

Written by: David Bohl

Article Overview: Productivity seems to be the Holy Grail of the twenty-first century. We spend tons of money, and even more time, on things like effectiveness training, time management, planners, goal setting instruction, and general productivity tips.

It's All About Passion and Purpose

Productivity seems to be the Holy Grail of the twenty-first century. We spend tons of money, and even more time, on things like effectiveness training, time management, planners, goal setting instruction, and general productivity tips.

And many of us pour all that time and money into careers that don't really matter to us. The results, not surprisingly, are disappointing, because we're trying infuse our work with energy and effectiveness, and those things don't come from outside. They can't be infused if there's no passion, no purpose.

You absolutely cannot be truly effective, and in turn truly successful, without being passionate about what you're doing. And passion is not something you can invent. It's something you have to discover.

So how do you discover this passion? Where do you find your deepest, truest love and purpose?

The first thing to realize is that discovering your passion is a process, not an event. You're not going to sit down at your desk and get up five minutes later with your passion and purpose all written out on a post-it note.

Your vision of your life will change over time, and you will become more steeped in your passion and your purpose.

But the beginning of the journey is establishing a vision. Think about your life in the future, a year or three years from now.

Try envisioning yourself at an awards dinner, with you as the guest of honor. What would you be receiving an award for? Who would be giving it to you?

These are two exercises that may help you find your passion, but chances are you already know what your passion is; you just don't know you know.

Think about the last time you stayed up until 3 a.m. talking to someone. What were you talking about?

What one thing that you do, would you do for free, if no one was willing to pay you?

If you're a reader, what have the last ten books you really enjoyed been about?

What do you believe?

What do you love to do?

What would you be doing if you could do anything you wanted?

Finding our passion and our purpose in life is rarely as hard as we think it will be, but it is made harder by believing that our passion, and our purpose, have to be related to what we already do, or that we're not "allowed" to have a passion or purpose in certain areas because of some limitation.

Before you spend any more time on effectiveness, why not take a little time to evaluate your passion and purpose? As noted author Stephen R. Covey has pointed out, it really doesn't matter how fast you climb the ladder if it's against the wrong wall.

To get started finding your passion and purpose:

• Name three things you have always loved doing, no matter what they are.

• Think about your career in terms of things you love doing. How closely do they overlap?

• Imagine two careers you would embark on if you could start a new career today.

Related Articles
  What is Passion
  The Art of Passion
  What is Passion for Today’s Business Leaders?
  A pathway to possibility Part Three
  Blueprint for Building a Business On Purpose

Article Tags: awards dinner, beginning of the journey, desk, discovering your passion, effectiveness training, exercises, fi, five minutes, goal setting, guest of honor, holy grail, last time, life in the future, management planners, passion and purpose, productivity tips, time and money, time management, tons of money, twenty first century



Related Forum Posts
Re: Success - I study success intently, and would like to share: Here's two excellent and nearly identical success-formulas from a couple of the world's masters. FIRST FORMULA: 1. Passionate Desire 2. Clear, Definite Purpose 3. Committed Decision 4. Take Action In Faith (Bonus Secret Sauce: 5. Repeat Consistently) I made a video about this, but am not allowed to link it yet. Google "Ryze Success Steps" for it. Oh, and this is Napoleon Hill's (Master Of Success Laws)'s Formula. SECOND FORMULA: 1. Passionate Desire 2. Understand It Is Already Done (Faith) 3. Relax & Allow It To Unfold (Go about your life calmly) This one is courtesy of Abraham-Hicks (inspiration for the movie The Secret). Hope that helps!
Re: On taking Action - [quote="jvprosperity":1hd0zjku]I was surprised to not see the words along the lines of taking deliberate action within the article. Do yo think it's an important part of the 6 points Evan summarized from the article or is it implied?[/quote:1hd0zjku] Hi Andy, I think taking deliberate action is implied in the six points. For instance, I interpret them as follows: 1. Set your sights on where you’re going - Write your goals down on paper. 2. Educate yourself - Read everyday about your field and even take courses on it. 3. Passion pays off - Enjoy what you're doing. 4. Grow your money - Invest your money. 5. No guts, no glory - Go out and sell your product/service/self everyday as if it were last. 6. The Biggest Secret? Stop spending. - Put aside as much money as you can into savings your account/retirement fund.
The Old Girl's Network - (2003) - Haven't read this one yet... Contents A business of one's own: setting the stage Passion: Turning what you love into a real business Vision: Bringing Your Idea Into the World Pioneering Spirit: Discovering new frontiers Tenacity: Passions Bulldog Raising Capital: Translating your vision into dollars and cents Focus, feedback and flexibility Leadership lessons Life after the survival stage: Managing onward There's a Took Kit in the back that has lots of good stuff, including: Outline for competitive analysis: the basic issues to address before starting your company Outline for executive summary and business plan, with sample summary Explanation of non-disclosure agreement Milestone setting "Do you have what it takes" quiz Sample financing term sheet Due Diligence checklist Sample advisory agreement Process and systems review Outsourcing overview
The 7 Greatest Truths about Successful Women - Picked up a few books on my weekly trip to the library, thought I'd share their tables of contents. The 7 Greatest Truths about Successful Women: How You Can Achieve Financial Independence, Professional Freedom, and Personal Joy, by Marion Luna Brem. From the inside cover: In 1984, battling both cervical and breast cancer, and facing $500,000 in medical bills and a disintegrating marriage, Marion Luna Brem was desperate to find a way to support herself and her two young sons. With more than a few strikes against her, she started knocking on doors, looking for a job. Seventeen doors later, the blunt speaking manager of a car dealership in central TExas declared, "I've been thinking of hiring a broad." And with that invitation, Marion took her own first step on the road to financial independence, yada yada yada Today, this "broad" owns two automobile dealerships, an advertising agency, and a stake in a local bank. She sits on the boards of several businesses, etc. etc. 1. Who Wants to be her own boss? 2. Ladies, Start your engines 3. Resiliency 4. Nurturing 5. Intuition 6. Creativity 7. Passion 8. Self-Value 9. Sensitivity 10. Leadership 11. Balance
Books for Women Entrepreneurs - There's a thread for good books in the Resources folder, but it doesn't target books for businesswomen particularly, so I figured I'd start such a thread here. It doesn't matter how successful you are in your business - it's always possible to learn something new. In subsequent posts I give Table of Contents and brief descriptions for various titles - most of them devoted to the businesswoman - and sometimes a review. If anyone else has read a review, or has read the book and found it useful, please comment! 1. The Old Girl's Network 2. Mother's Work 3. The 7 Greatest Truths About Successful Women 4. Pitch Like A Girl 5. Workplace Warrior 6. Treasure Hunt: Inside the Mind of the Modern Consumer 7. Contingency Planning & Disaster Recovery 8. She Wins, You Win 9. Napoleon On Project Management 10. Why Good Girls Dont' Get Ahead, But Gutsy Girls Do 11. Comeback Moms: How to Leave Work, Raise Children, and Restart your Career even If you Haven't Had a Job in Years 12. The One Minute Millionaire 13. Talking From 9 to 5 14. Soloing: Realizing Your Life's Ambitions 15. 101 Best Home Based Businesses for Women: Everything You Need to Know About Getting Started on the Road To Success 16. Work With Passion: How to Do What You Love for a Living. Revised and Expanded 17. Fail-Proof Your Business: Beat the Odds and be Successful 18. Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End 19. Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide 20. Millionaire Women Next Door: The Many Journeys of Successful American Businesswomen 21. Start Small, Finish Big: Fifteen Key Lessons to Start - and Run - Your Own Successful Business 22. Rewired, Rehired or Retired: A Global Guide for the Experienced Worker 23. The Martha Rules: 10 essentials for achieving success as you start, build or manage a business 24. The Essentials of Entrepreneurship: What it takes to create Successful Enterprises 25. Net Ready: Strategies for Success in the E-conomy 26. The Promotable Woman 27. Leave The Office Earlier: The Productivity Pro shows you how to do more in less time and feel great about it 28. The Work At Home Balancing Act: The professional resource guide for managing yourself, your work, and your family at home 29. Secrets of Six-Figure Women


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