How to Find Your Passions - What would be ideal?

How do you find your passion - Part 13

What would your ideal life be like?

You're now in the 4th part of the exercise. So far you have looked at your Past: Successes, Childhood, and Experience. Then you looked at Who You Are: Skills and talents, Your uniqueness, Your sentence, and Values. Then you looked at what you are interested in: What you love to do, What you actually do, Why.

Now we're going to look at the 4th bit - What would you like?

After all, this finding your passion thing is to improve your life, right? No point in choosing something that you actually don't want, is there? So let's set out some tools for looking at what would be ideal.

What is ideal then?

What would your ideal life include?

If you were to think of every area in your life, how would it be if it was ideal?

We're not really going for some impossible version of perfection - you know, you'd like to be a rock star, but in reality you can't hold a tune, or you would really like to be tall but you are short - but of those things that you can influence, how would you like your life to be?

Here are some categories to get you going:

- Relationships
- Family
- Friends
- Home
- Lifestyle
- Creativity
- Fun
- Relaxation
- Holidays
- Travel
- Stuff (you know, possessions and such)
- Purpose
- Spiritual Growth
- Health
- Work

When I made mine I found that for each category I broke it down more. So for Home it had a subcategory of Garden, which then had about 6 items of things that I would like for my garden.

A tool to find what your ideal life is

What to Do Now

You could start with a list.

Then group things into areas.

A mind map is great for this.

Here is the beginning of my mind map. My actual finished one had many many items and sub items - seems I have lots of  'ideal'.

Here is a blank mind map you can download free to help you with this step

DOWNLOAD FREE MINDMAP WORKSHEET For My Ideal Life

Review

Are there any things here that seem of utmost importance?

Are there any new ideas?

The World is Changing

Global Awakening

We are in a period of major transition. The world is changing. The world's values, economics, and consciousness are shifting. Some call this the next step in our evolution as a human race, or a global awakening - we're moving beyond the last technology leap into an increasing awareness of our inter-relatedness and connectedness.

Money and Status

Currently our culture is heavily focused on money and status. But do you feel it? The urge to have more meaning, more passion, more impact, more purpose? We want to contribute, to offer our skills and unique gifts in service to the world, but still create a life of prosperity.

The old way of just accumulating 'stuff' no longer does it for us. We are beyond just needing to survive, and now want to nurture our higher aspirations.

But how do we do it? There are few road maps out there to show us the way.

Women are the future

I believe women are the creators of the future.

Now, to be clear, I have nothing against men. They have had great influence and impact over centuries in our society, and a lot of that has created positive strides, particularly in science and technology. But I believe that now is the time of women. Now is our time to step into our power.

Our generation, like none before, can build on the successes and victories of our mothers and grandmothers. We are living recipients of the benefits of the feminism and racism movements. We CAN do anything. Sure, there are many many glass ceilings and not nearly enough women in power. But why is that? Maybe one reason of many is that women are not choosing to follow men up their power structures and into the established corporate world.

Maybe some women, and some men too of course, can see the need for a new way of being. A way where the world is starting to heal, where our damage to the earth is reversed and regeneration begins. A world where society becomes more just and equitable and all people can live in equality and peace and prosperity.

Imagine a world where people are engaged in worthwhile work that helps the world to thrive

Imagine a world where people everywhere are equal and can live in peace and prosperity and equality.

Where the world and its environment and creatures are on the road to healing.

Imagine if everyone's efforts were directed towards the greater good.

Imagine if this was you too.

I Believe

That our world desperately needs a shift where more and more of us are spending our time and efforts daily on creating this new world.

That this is the time for such a shift. Our society is maturing sufficiently to allow this new consciousness to arise. We are already seeing a rise in companies that have social good built in to their very reason for existence, with B corporations and for-profit Social Enterprises.

That we, as women who are looking for more meaning in our lives, are the ones who will lead this radical society change.

These are exciting times!

I believe it is part of my contribution to foster this process. If you are excited about being part of this process too, check out our website All The Right Places. I am creating a resource that is useful to us women seeking to begin helping the world to thrive. I'd love to hear from you, use the 'Contact us' tab on the website.

How to Find Your Passions - What are your Curiosities?

How do you find your passion - Part 11

What are you curious about?

Sometimes our real interests lie in our future. What we are doing right now doesn't quite cut it. Otherwise we wouldn't be searching for the next thing, right?

One of the things we need to check in with is what we are actively curious about.

And in this age of google and all things interwebby, we all have access to an enormous amount of information. So by looking at what you search for and look at and listen to (Ted Talks anyone?) might illuminate some areas of interest and passion too.

What do you investigate for fun?

So, what are your curiosities?

What sort of things fascinate you?

What do you want to know more about?

What do you search for on google?

What do you read for interest?

What do you talk about for interest?

Step 11 in finding your passion

What to do now

Make a list of all the areas that you are curious about. These are the things that you are actively curious about - those ones that you actually spend time investigating. The ones where you think you might be interested in, or should be interested in don't count here. Just the ones that you notice you actually spend your time on.

Review

Any common themes?

How to Find Your Passions - Why You Love what you Love

How do you find your passion - part 10

What do you love to do and what do you really do?

So, in the last 2 sections, you've made lists or mind maps of what you CHOOSE to spend your time on and what you LOVE.

You used these questions as a framework for bringing to light what you love:

What do you choose to do with your free time?

When you have discretionary time, what activity gets your vote?

What activities bring you joy?

What's your favourite part of each day?

Which things are you pulled by love to do, not pushed by force?

Now we are going to look at WHY?

Why do you love what you love?

You need to be quite specific here, what is it about the activity that brings you joy?

So for example, I love to cross stitch. For me, it is the ability to let my mind idle while I do it and think about my dreams and ideas in an unforced way. the whole restfulness of it all. Its also about the detail and following a pattern, and using my hands to do something. But it might be being creative and making up a new pattern for someone else. Or creating a useful something for another person. Same activity, different motivations.

The next step

What to do now

1. Take your list of what you love to do and what you actually do from the previous exercises.

2. Write all the 'whats' down the left hand side of a page.

3. On the right hand side of your page, for each item, write out the 'whys', WHY this thing brings you happiness and that soulfully fulfilling feeling. There might be one, or maybe several. Put them all down.

How to Find Your Passions - What you actually do

How do you find your passion - part 9

What do you really do with your time?

Chances are, you already are spending time on your passions. Just not as much of the time as you would like. So let's look at what you currently are doing to find some things that might be a passion.

What do you do right now?

What do you choose to do with your free time?

When you have discretionary time, what activity gets your vote?

In the weekend, or after work, or on a quiet Sunday afternoon, or on holiday, what do you actually DO?

After the chores and the income producing work is over, the house and animals are taken care of, what do you look forward to? What do you choose?

A quick way to find your passions

What to do now

Make a list of all your discretionary activities:

What do you do in the weekend?

What do you do after work?

What do you do on holiday?

Then: group them into categories. It doesn't matter how your categories are organised, this is about making sense to you.

Create another mind map, similar to the 'What I Love to Do' one from the previous exercise.

Here is a free downloadable template for your mindmap

DOWNLOAD FREE MINDMAP WORKSHEET FOR What I really to do

Review

Are there any common themes?

How to Find Your Passions - What you love to do

How do you find your passion - part 8

What are you drawn to?

Imagine spending your day on things that you love. Time would fly, you would be in 'flow' much of the time. Your daily life would bring you joy regularly. We all want to live like this don't we? I believe that many of us can. Wouldn't that just be so great!

Well chances are, you already know some of the things you love. So lets look at what currently gives you joy to highlight exactly what might be a passion then.

What do you love to do?

What activities bring you joy?

What's your favourite part of each day?

Which things are you pulled by love to do, not pushed by force? You're looking here for the feeling and the energy behind the thing.

A quick way to find your passions

What to do now

Make a list of all the activities you currently choose to do because you love them. 

Don't forget things that might relate to people either. Do you love to hang out with people?

Then: group them into categories. It doesn't matter how your categories are organised, this is about making sense to you.

I find it helpful at this stage to make a mind map, like my one below I have started, as an example.

You can download a free outline mind map to help you fill it in

DOWNLOAD FREE WHAT I LOVE TO DO MINDMAP WORKSHEET

Review

Are there any common themes?

How to Find Your Passions - Remember Your Successes WORKSHEET

Free Download

If you have not yet done the first exercise Remember Your Successes, here is a worksheet to download to help you fill that one out:

(No email address required)

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