Word on the street is that: If you love what you do, you never have to work a day in your life.
Not true.
Here’s why.
Cold Cuppa tea
I teach people how to find what they love, their passion, their dream job. In doing so…. I find that people really get to understand, define, and really crystallize what it is that they’re passionate about. I see people light up when they finally come to terms with what they’re passionate about.
And they’re ecstatic.
But what I’ve noticed is that once you find your passion, what happens is that following through on that passion doesn’t happen.
They just let (their passion) sit on the side, get cold, undesirable… like a cold cuppa tea on a winter’s day.
Question:
My question has always been “but why?”
Why don’t you follow through on your passion?
You’ve been seeking it for so long, craving it.. You now know what you love to do, your unique calling,…why do you stop and start, like hand-me-down aged car? (I had one of these).
The Answer.
You see, on my South Asian and Middle East Workshop Tour this year, as I go around these various cities, (that’s a blessing and honour I don’t take for granted), teaching people how to find their passion and then how to build influence, impact and income through the vehicle of speaking, I realized that at each stage of my tour there has been a test for me.
The tests
To name a few…
There’s been a test of my persistence (with government red tape)
There’s been a test of my resilience (filling workshops within 48 hours).
Heck, there’s even been a test of my health.
1st stop on my workshop tour in Singapore I developed laryngitis, with a severe cough. I was losing my voice – during the workshop, the Dr. told me to stop speaking to heal my voice. (this had never happened to me…ever…great timing..eh)!
In the 2nd city, because of a really stubborn cough that had me have 2 hours a sleep a night (the effects of laryngitis) I was sleep deprived.
By the third city I had back to back workshops, jet lag, venue setbacks etc.
Now I’m sharing these things with you because…its easy to stop the process.
Peace with the Process
I love to deliver trainings that’s my passion: teaching and training.
That’s what I love to do, but at every stage of working on delivering my passion on this workshop tour, I was being tested because that’s what pursing your passion, my own passion looks like..
For the privilege of living ones passion, A HUGE piece (like 80%) is about but finding your own peace with the process – what it takes to live what you love to do.
In other words…
It’s easier to say my passion is “teaching” or ” writing” or “carpentry” or “calligraphy”.
The hard part is sticking to the process that brings you and I to the passion of teaching, writing or whatever our passion is.
Living our passion, I’ve realised during this tour, is 20% – 30% of the time doing what we love.
The other 70% – 80% is the process, it’s all the unglamorous detail, work, vision, the learning, the lessons, the red tape, the mental work, our inside voice (the tests) working in the background for the opportunity, the possibility and the privilege to deliver our passion.
Which is HARD
Take Muhammad Ali as an example:
He said that he hated every day of training (the process), but he knew if he did it that he would be one of the greatest boxers in the world. When he trained he didn’t count the sit-ups until it started to hurt – only then did he start counting the number of sit-ups.
That’s the process for the opportunity and privilege to deliver his passion in the ring.
Take any Olympian.
They train for years for the privilege to deliver their passion in that three minute or one minute leap, jump or swim.
Steve Jobs, spent years in the process (and the tests that came with that process), before his passion (creating the iPad, the iPod, the iPhone) entered the world.
Take getting a degree.
We spend most of the time (years in) study, researching, writing, preparing to one have the privilege of graduating.
We spend more time in the process than the actual passion itself.
SO..
Yes you have to find and work to your passion – that’s 101…it’s the foundation
But doing that thang that lights us up and to be able to do that for a living so its an expression of our life and legacy and whats meaningful to us… for that to come to pass we need to to find peace in the process (and the tests that come with it) because only then are we rewarded with the privilege of living and delivering that passion.
Rita 🙂 P.S If you would like to attend a half day workshop on how to find your passion (dream job) _and get the foundation right…and/or how to use speaking to attract clients in one talk: The Speaking Success System™ – there are only 2 cities left Canberra (Sat. 16th Sept) and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 14th October.
To find your passion: To learn more and register go to: www.unboxyourgift.com/passion
To learn how to attract clients with speaking go to: www.unboxyourgift.com/speak