workout

When you hear the word “passion” what comes over you?

When I hear the word passion I don t have so much a thought as I do an emotional reaction; it’s what gets me up in the morning and drives me to do what I do.  Passion is much more than just a feeling.  It is an energy that gives you the power to act as a result of focusing on what excites you and gives you a reason to keep learning, and working towards your goals. To live your passion you must find a way to live in alignment with what achieves your purpose.   Purpose is the ability to lead with your unique strengths, to serve the world in a way that makes you have been alive matter and your life making a difference in the world. All leaders will say that everyone needs a guiding direction.  If this direction is the result of a true passion that can translate into worthwhile action seeking to bring about change for the better, then you are living your purpose.  Whatever way (passion or purpose) leads you in your life, leaders need to gain awareness, build belief and exercise creativity in order to continually fuel their passion and strengthen their purpose.  Here’s how—Step 1: Gaining Awareness.

Gaining Awareness: Is knowing and understanding what is working both for and against you in each area of your life—body (health and fitness), mind and emotions (beliefs), relationships, family, social (friends, fun), spirituality (religion, meditation), money/finances and business/career.  This starts with a self-inventory of your life and while this may sound like a daunting task to undertake I would recommend that you keep it simple.   Choose two to three areas in the seven areas (above) that you wish to focus on and that will make the biggest positive impact in your life this year.  To gain ‘2020 vision’ (clarity of vision), look at what is directly in front of you—the good, the bad and the ugly. Then ask yourself what you need to do to manage or even change what is not working and how to leverage what is working so that you have more space and energy for more of the good in your life.  Think of this the same way you would purging your pantry to remove all of the unhealthy foods so to make space for healthy foods you choose to replace the bad with.  A simple way to get this exercise started is with a contrast list.  You will need one piece of paper that you can physically work with.  To start draw a vertical line down the center of the page.  On the left side write down all the things that you no longer like, want or need in your life.  Complete this side of the page first.  Move to the right side of the page and for each item on the left, write down a ‘contrasting’ need or want to replace it with. Work down the list filling the page with everything that you want, like or need to focus on for 2020.  Complete this contrasting exercise focusing on the two to three areas you have chosen to focus on for this year.  You may wish to complete one page for each area or combine all areas on one page.  Once you have completed this exercise cut the page in half (along the vertical line your drew on the page) and toss the left side away ‘letting it go’ from your mind. Take the right side of the page and move to step 2: Building Belief.

Building Belief: Belief is an acceptance that a statement is true.  It is also defined as trust, faith or confidence in someone or something.  In order to seize the year and advance to the next level in your life, you must believe— not in what you want, but why you deserve what it is that you seeking —those things that you wrote down on the right side of your page in the contrasting exercise in step 1 above.  It is critical that you focus intently on the things you want, envisioning with ’2020 vision’ how this success will look, be and feel when you achieve it.  In order for your belief to be high, your passion must be higher and the only way to have massive amounts of passion is through seeking out experiences.  Think back to your last successful experience or that moment you achieved something that you were striving for.  What was it? How did it make you feel?  What was your energy like?  On a level of 1 to 10, what was your belief level?  If you are able to recall this moment of success easily then I’m confident that your belief was high (8 to 9 out of 10).  Reflect back on the journey that got you to that success.  What did it take for you to achieve this?  What did you have to change, overcome and focus intently on to get you there?    I am quite certain that within this reflection you admitted it required you to find ways around obstacles by seeing them as opportunities instead of roadblocks and approaching them from all angles for better problem-solving.  This leads us to step 3: Exercise Creativity.

Exercising Creativity:  Creativity makes life infinitely more interesting and fulfilling.  Often we think of creativity as making something, when in fact, its far more about living life in a way that celebrates originality and uniqueness.  It’s also about finding new and different ways around obstacles by seeing them as opportunities, not roadblocks and approaching them with optimism and excitement.  Engaging in the creative process is also a great confidence builder because we discover that failure is part of the process.  By seeing that failure is survival-able, we become better able to release fear and try new things without worrying so much about the outcome.  Creativity is a skill that needs development with practice.  Go back to step 1 above and review the list of things that you wrote down that you would like, want and achieve more of in 2020.  Further, expand on this list with your new skill of creativity understanding that as you develop this skill you will expand your mind and feel your passion soar.

LIVE Your Passion 2020 is canfitpro’s theme for this year and I invite you to adopt this theme as your own personal vision and take the necessary steps to gain awareness, build belief and exercise creativity, so as to ensure you achieve your goals and soar in your success.  All the best!