Follow your Passion...What the F*Ck Does that Mean?!

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” –Mark Twain
 
I wanted to find that joy.  That thing that made me get out of bed and dance my way to the coffee pot every morning. We hear it over and over again, follow your passion and it will lead you to success.  Every time I heard this, I would question myself “why didn’t I know what my passion was?” and “how can I follow my passion if I don’t know what it is?, I guess I’ll never be successful”. I started believing that I was going to live my life in this rut, in this hamster race, just going through the motions and not really finding joy or connection.  Honestly, I had really given up on finding my passion and believed that I didn’t have one, until devastation tore my world apart.  It was almost like the universe was screaming at me to look at my life, to really start analyzing what parts of it I loved and what aspects I needed to move on from.
 
In between having our two sons, my husband and I went through the excruciating pain of experiencing four miscarriages.  During these difficult times, I was so overcome with grief and questions, that I couldn’t see how this was affecting my life.  Two years after our second son was born, we experienced two more miscarriages, the fifth one being absolutely gut wrenching because it had been further along.  It was at this time that I really started asking “why?”.  Why was God or the universe putting me through so much pain?  I knew there was a message I was supposed to get, but I wasn’t really sure what it was. 
 
This was the time that I really started exploring personal development.  I needed a way to get out of this pain that I had been experiencing for 4 years.  I needed to know that there was more to life than just going through the motions.  But still, I didn’t know my passion.  I didn’t know what it was that I wanted to pursue that was going to bring me success or make me feel alive again.  My main questions were “What the f*ck do people mean when they say follow your passion?” and “How can I find my passion?” 
 
I used to love to ride horses, but I didn’t want to do that for a living. I used to love to run.  I started reconnecting with my love of running, but that still wasn’t bringing me the fulfillment that I yearned for.  I used to love to write, but how could I use this to help others and feel connected? My coach and I discussed how I could integrate writing into my life and how I could use it to help others.  This developed into me creating a blog to help other women who had experienced pain through miscarriages.  However, this wasn’t helping women to get out of that funk, it wasn’t helping them to reconnect with themselves and their joy.  It was at this point that I discovered that I wanted to be a life coach so that I could develop the tools necessary to help others. And I loved it! Like, I truly loved it.  I don’t just do it to make money, I do it because it sparks something in me, it lights me up inside! 
 
But I couldn’t stop at that.  I needed to know why.  Why did I want to write? Why did I want to coach?  What had lit that fire inside of me?  Had I always had that and forgotten about it?  The answer to that is complicated.  Yes, I had always enjoyed writing and just hadn’t done anything about it.  And yes, I had always liked helping people, hence me becoming a teacher.  But it wasn’t until I had experienced the worst pain I had ever known, that I realized my why.   My why for starting my blog, for sharing my story. My why for wanting to become a life coach, was to ensure that no one ever felt alone in the grief process.  I wanted to help people through that pain and show them that they could come out of it even happier. 
 
The moral of the story is that not everyone knows their passion when they are born.  It’s a term that is thrown around a lot that can be intimidating and make you feel insignificant because you haven’t figured out your passion.  So, here’s my advice to you, curtesy of Tom Bilyeu: “go out and try shit”. See what sticks.  But don’t stop there. Once you figure out what you love, figure out why you love it.  Cause you aren’t always going to be motivated to do the work. You need to have a very deep why, a why that will get you out of bed every day and make you want to dance to the coffee pot because you are so inspired.