Take a look at your career and ask yourself this simple question: “Where do I go from here?”
How much clarity do you feel around the answer? As you chart out your career path, are you able to say with confidence, “This is the direction that will light me up and let me do my best work – this is the path where I can realize my highest potential?”
When you tap into what energizes and engages you, not only are you happier (good for you, good for the people around you), you also have more energy to put into high performance (good for you, good for your boss, and good for your employer). When you plan for passion, everybody wins.
A methodical approach to finding passion
I’m a big fan of passion. I’m an even bigger fan of taking a no-nonsense approach to finding it. This article is based on a step-by-step system I developed called The Occupational Adventure GuideTM. It takes passion out of the abstract and offers a logical, methodical approach to help you incorporate it into your decisions.
Whether you love the word passion or find it overused and trite, odds are good you want to feel energized and engaged by your work. This article offers you a common- sense way to get there.
Here is the nutshell version of the process:
- Identify your Passion Factors: Discover the building blocks of your passion by reverse engineering the things you love doing. Identify why those things energize you.
- Explore your passion paths: Identify the potential career paths that have a high density of your Passion Factors.
- Evaluate your passion paths: Use your Passion Factors to evaluate potential career paths.
A new definition of passion
At the heart of this approach is this definition: Passion is the energy that comes from bringing more of YOU into what you do. In its simplest form, it’s about figuring out what makes you tick and identifying the potential paths that align most strongly with that.
Think of water flowing along a riverbed. That water actually gets energy from the path it takes. It’s similar with passion. When your work is in alignment with what naturally lights you up, doing the work becomes a source of energy.
On the other hand, if your work is out of alignment with what lights you up, it can feel more like getting water up and over a mountain. It’s possible, but getting it done takes a lot of energy and leaves you feeling drained.
Step one: Identify your Passion Factors
It’s not WHAT you love.
It’s WHY you love it.
To “bring more of YOU into what you do, look beyond what you love doing and explore why you love it. Understanding what you love isn’t accurate enough, because two people can both say, “I love _____” (I love cooking, for example) and be talking about two different experiences. The reasons why they love it might be completely different. Asking why lets you drill down to what’s unique to you. It allows you to identify your Passion Factors, the underlying reasons why that tend to be present when you feel energized and engaged.
Find your Passion Factors
Think of the process of identifying your Passion Factors as reverse engineering what lights you up. You start with what you love and dig down to identify the underlying reasons why.
Start by making a list of things you have loved doing over the course of your life – work or play. Those might include a job, a specific aspect of a job, a hobby, a class in school, extra-curricular activities, a period of your life, etc.
Pick one item from the list and start digging into why you have enjoyed it so much. For each reason you identify, ask yourself, “Why? What is it about this that is so appealing?”
Don’t stop at asking why just once. Once you have your initial set of reasons why (“I love it because _____, ______, and _____”), look at each of those reasons and ask, “What is it about this that is so compelling? Why is that so enjoyable?” Challenge yourself to dig four or five layers deep.
As you reverse engineer, you’ll find similar themes start to come up. Inevitably, the same underlying reasons why will be a part of multiple things you love doing.
For example, a common theme for me is “exploration and discovery.” That shows up in my coaching work, my travel photography, my genealogical research, and more.
These recurring themes are your Passion Factors, the underlying characteristics that tend to be present when you’re on fire.
In the years I have been taking people through this process, I have seen clients identify hundreds of different Passion Factors. Here are just a few examples of some common ones:
- Analysis Problem-solving
- Creating order out of chaos
- Deep connection with others
- Having a defined beginning and end
- Creativity Freedom and flexibility
- Discovery Understanding/working with systems
- Solving puzzles
This is by no means a comprehensive picture. I share them here only to give a small taste of what Passion Factors might look like.
By compiling your Passion Factors in one place, you create a tool you can use to consciously, intentionally bring passion into the picture. It’s like having an internal compass that can point you in the right direction.
Step two: Explore your Passion Paths
There are several ways you can use that internal compass to take the guesswork out of career path exploration efforts.
Career path idea generation
The first way to use that internal compass is as a springboard for exploration of potential career paths.
Ask, “What are the paths out there that line up with these Passion Factors? What are the careers are characterized by these Passion Factors?”
Career path exploration
When you put your finger on a path that looks interesting, you can use that internal compass to help you explore it more deeply. For example, in informational interviews, you can use it to guide the conversation. “Here are these underlying themes I have identified that tend to be present when I’m energized. Are any of these a strong part of the work you do?”
Step three: Evaluate Your Choices
Finally, you can use those underlying themes to evaluate decisions. That internal compass gives you a concrete and tangible way to evaluate your career decisions in terms of the question, “How likely is this to energize me?”
It’s simple logic. If you identify the Passion Factors that tend to be in place when you feel energized and engaged, and a potential path is chock full of those Passion Factors, then the probability is high that that path will energize and engage you.
Understanding your Passion Factors takes a lot of the guess work out of the process, giving your something tangible to refer to as you evaluate possibilities.
You can put this idea to work on multiple levels:
- The big picture: What direction should your career path take you?
- The medium picture: Here’s a job opportunity – should you take it?
- The small picture: For example, recognizing and pursuing projects that tap into what lights you up.
Passion Guidance System
One last way you can use your understanding of the Passion Factors in your internal compass is to share them with your current manager to help him or her guide you in a direction that maximizes the likelihood that you will feel energized by your work.
Think of it as making your boss’ job easier. Part of their job is to get the most from the resources available. The more energized you are by your work, the better you are likely to perform. And the more they understand what energizes you, the better equipped they are to steer what you do in that direction
A savvy investment in your career
When your work aligns with what energizes and engages you – when you bring more of YOU into what you do – it can fuel your success, strengthen your confidence, and inspire persistence.
With benefits like that, planning for passion is one of the best investments in your career you can make!