Find Your Fire!

By Daria Campbell

Have you ever wondered why some people succeed and some don’t? Sure, there are many factors involved depending on what you are doing.  For instance, if you are an athlete there is training and athletic ability. If you are a musician there is practice and talent. If you are a parent, it might be how much time you spend with your children and the quality of that time spent. If you are a business owner, it might be your marketing plan and your product. But one thing will be the deciding factor in all of these endeavors…passion.

As life goes on you may find yourself feeling stalled or burned out with whatever you are doing in life. At that point you need to stop, take a deep breath and ask yourself this simple question, “Am I passionate about this?”

Now do not get me wrong. Work is work and most of us have to do it sometimes just to survive so the answer could be no when it comes to your job but that only means you need really need to find something to be passionate about.

Think back to when you were a kid and you knew there was going to be something special event at school that day? How excited were you the night before, that morning, and all day until the event came around?  I remember we used to have a Sports Day in Primary school followed by a picnic outside. It was always my favorite time of year because we got to stay outside all day and not go to classes and just have a blast with my friends. It made every other day of the school year worth it. This is the kind of passion you need to tap into but not just for one day, for as many days as you can.

Passion is something you must take the time to recognize. Here are some ways to know if you have passion about something in your life:

1. You love talking about it to people
2. You block out time for it
3. You make goals around it and are happy to work at it
4. You feel like you never want to stop (even though you may one day, because things change in one’s life or it could be a lifelong passion, who knows)
5. It makes your heart beat fast and puts a smile on your face and puts pep in your step

If you are still confused at what I am trying to say let’s look at what not having passion looks like.  Have you ever been to a restaurant and the waiter or waitress is literally doing the bare minimum to serve you? They have absolutely no passion regarding tier job. Or have you been to a reception desk and the person behind the desk looks as if they would rather be anywhere but there.  You literally use the phrase for these people, “they are over it.”  Not a good place to be in life.

My own personal example is when I was first learning how to teach Group Fitness. The woman training me gave me this advice; if I come into the class with 100% energy the class participants are going to give me 80% energy, If I teach the class with 80% energy the class is going to give me 20%. And if I come into the class with anything under 50% energy, I will have a morgue on my hands. It will be a class of zombies swaying to the music. The point is I always have to be passionate when I am instructing and believe me it wasn’t always easy but I love teaching and my students, so the passion came.

So ask yourself what are you passionate about? And if you can’t answer the questions think about what you would like to get passionate about? Even if it is a small thing life is not life without some passion. Remember passion is energy. You are either green and growing or ripe and rotting. Which is it?