Principle Driven Passion

Finding your passion…How do you do it?  You must find your foundation of function, what is self-evident.  What is it?  It is where your journey will finally start.  Where?  It’s inside you, it’s your core, deep in the soul of you.  It’s your guiding principles.  We often “float” through our days without a true purpose.  I often hear people say, “I’m still trying to find myself.”  What does that mean?  It sounds like you’re lost.  If you asked me, I would say, you are lost.  You may not feel comfortable saying it yourself and you’d probably even argue to defend the position that you’re not, but…you are lost.  You are one who wakes up in the morning and goes through your day with minimal control.  Your daily circumstances, experiences, moments, or events master your thoughts, feelings and your attitude.  You get caught in the web of negative thoughts, feelings and attitude and in result you end up with poor actions that lead to minimal success and many failures.

This is you…when one of these moments occur you attach, often subconsciously,  a negative thought, feeling, attitude or reaction to the moment.   You assign blame to something or someone while defending yourself or you ignore it and change your path foregoing personal responsibility while still withholding negative feelings.  When in this moment you attach a good response, which is rare, you use it.  You pursue this new “positive” feeling and try to keep it around as long as possible probably following it’s “path” wherever it takes you.  You keep following based on the feelings and emotions you receive from the outside world, friends, family or others.  It feels good on the outside and so you think you are all good on the inside only to eventually end up right where you began or finding out that you still have that “something is missing” feeling.  This often occurs over and over in a cyclical fashion.  If you’ve ever said, “why does this always happen to me?” or “here we go again” or anything similar then you’ve probably experienced it.    The outside is bells and whistles, it’s decoration.  The outside is a house not a home, it’s personality not character.  If you do not understand yourself inside then you are missing the all important first piece of finding your passion.  If you’re missing this initial component then you’re just existing and letting life take you for a ride filled with hills and valleys, twist, turns, loops and then right back to the beginning. During these rides you may often believe you’ve learned about yourself and grown…have you?  Take a look, look at it as a whole.  Are you still “hanging around” at about the same place you were last year or even 5, 10 years ago?  Have you grown or moved forward?  Of course you’ve probably learned some new information and even grown a little personally or professionally, but are you still in the same amusement park?  Maybe just on another ride taking you through similar hills and valleys, twists, turns,  and loops?  Have you only minimally progressed moving only from one side of the park to the other.  Often still taking the same rides over and over.  Is this your life?  Are you in control?

I ask this because I myself was recently riding what I thought was a great coaster.  Thankfully I enjoy challenging myself and pushed myself outside my comfort zone learning and eventually understanding my life’s journey was cyclical in nature and not really moving forward.  I kept spinning my wheels in both my personal and professional life and noticed minimal growth.  While noticing this dysfunction I had to start all over; although this time was much different.  Before it came naturally to me and this time around I quickly realized that I didn’t know where to start.  I had no destination, but I also had no place to start either.  I’ll explain…

If I have no destination such as a goal or a series of goals to achieve a compelling vision, will I ever know if I’m getting to where I want to be?  If I’m just riding or experiencing whatever comes around and then reacting, will I ever evolve to be the person I want or know I could be.  How will I measure my success or if I’m even progressing towards achieving what I want to do?  Is it possible to evolve this way?  Possibly, however it will probably take me twice as long if I reach my desired destination at all.  I’m not saying not be spontaneous or not do something that you’ve already planned.  If I said that then I would be completely contradicting myself and would have missed out on several of the most enjoyable times of my life.  I’m also not saying that it’s not important for us to learn from our experiences.  If I said that then I would be completely contradicting myself again because I try to learn from everything I go through.  What I’m saying is pick something to reach for.  Pick anything as a destination.  It can be something small, but if you’re asking my opinion.  Pick something BIG.  Pick your greatest dream and paint the most vivid picture in your mind.  Pick the people you want around, the job you love, the house you own and live there, be in that moment.  Once you have the big picture of your vision, you must act as if you are there.  Not act as in faking you were there like an actor or actress, but perform the actions as though you are already there.  In doing this you will learn, become confident and now know the person you have to be to get there.  Within that person you will find the passion it takes to drive you to achieve that vision.  Now that you have a vision, a destination, how do you find it?  Where do you start?

Examine yourself!  As I spoke of previously, it’s inside you!  In your vision, explore your personal qualities.  Don’t do this as though you’re looking at a future you, but do this as though you are already there.  How are you moving and responding to others, you’re mannerisms, the affect of your voice, and your facial expressions? Your energy, how does it move people?  Who are the people in your vision?  Who is around you?  Friends, loved ones and others.  Who wants to be close to you and why?  What are you thinking and why?  Look inside yourself.  Look at your character, look at your motives and what you are grateful for.  What feelings are showcased?  Analyze it all and be thorough because it is in all of this you will be able to find out what your guiding principles are.  Principles are your core, they are the foundations of your function, they are your starting point.  If you know your destination then you need a map, but before you can create a map you must know the land.  In the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People Stephen R. Covey states,  “Principles are the territory.  Values are maps.  When we value correct principles, we have truth-a knowledge of things as they are.”  I often say with competence comes confidence and when you decide or find your guiding principles, you have truth and a sense of self confidence.  Knowing this, look at your analysis of yourself from your vision and you’ll see it become more and more clear.  Review your character, look again at your thoughts, the actions you take, and the habits you develop.  Achieve your destiny!  Many, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, once said, ” Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.”   Don’t seek motivation or the other temporary, cosmetic fixes.  Look inside yourself and you’ll have your principles soon enough.  Know your principles, pursue your passion,  live your vision!

-B. Sobotka