Don't Find Your Passion

Yesterday I was driving out my complex driveway at 06h15. Yet another weekend that I've managed to let slip through my fingers due to work committments. While I love my job and respect that working weekends comes with the territory, moaning about it is necessary - because its reminds me that I need to find what I really want to miss my weekends for.

I realised en route to the office that a box and a label for my personality would be hard to find, I am after all as unique as everyone else is. As I chat with a friend (who shares the same self discovery mission I'm on) we talk about finding ourselves and changing our lives, careers and current positions, but where to start?

Listing The Obvious

I'm sure I've blogged about this before, about the life coach I stopped going to because one single sentence she had mentioned changed my perception of my quest. "What makes you happy?" A question I haven't been able to answer, but its getting easier.

For some its easy to list ones joys. Chocolate, wine, writing, socialising with friends, animals - but we all like those things right? And then I realised I was listing the obvious, the quest to find ones passion doesn't necessarily mean listing what makes you happy, its about finding what makes you, you!

Lose The Labels

At this stage you're either with me or you're completely lost. If you're with me it probably cause you're searching too. Here's the thing, don't find your passion, find your (insert your name and add "ness" to it). Its the raw version of yourself that you've been all this time, there is no need to reinvent yourself, just see yourself from the worlds perspective looking in. 

The friend I had mentioned earlier has been trying to find a label and a pigeon hole to put herself in and she feels like she's failing miserably in her quest. I have been where she is now, grasping at labels and careers to put myself in line with and follow - until now. I laugh in the face of moulds, I am one of a kind and I broke the mould when I was made!

While some people find it easy to wake up at the end of Grade 9 and say "Yes I wanna be a doctor", there are more and more people who are just not able to make one solid decision because there are so many options out there these days. Finding your (insert your name and add "ness" to it) means finding what you have innately known your whole life without even recognising it. Perhaps you're the prototype for a label of its own?

As Unique As Everyone Else

So you're reading this saying "Ok, Tan. You say I need to be myself, but how do I know what that is?". The answer involves some research and discovery. Interview people about your childhood, collate a list of those things people always say about you and you will see the pattern. My mom recently told me that I was always asking questions. A family friend confirmed that I was always busy with something, discovering new things with a manic sense of urgency. Wow, how nothings changed.

Oddly enough I only realised yesterday that I'm considered quite humourous by my friends and colleagues. I say oddly because apparently its quite obvious to everyone else and yet I scratched my head hearing this information as if someone had told me I had been adopted. 

It was a shock to hear it, yes I've always known I was a clown but to be described by my peers as witty, quirky and sharp with my humour was news to me, apparently that's part of my Tanithness! Of course it is, its the one thing that people say "Oh my that's just so you". In identifying your unique attributes you'll find your passions and you'll find there aren't just a couple. 

Lose Your Watch, Not Your Compass

Forget the pressures of conformity (and by this I dont mean become complacent or lazy in your quest for self improvement) and just keep exploring what you love and who you are until something fits. 

Take that cooking/DIY/abseiling/scuba-diving/pottery/teaching/photography/saxaphone/animal whispering course and keep going until something makes sense enough for you to stay. 

I'm realising that most of the people that feel lost or unfulfilled in their lives are those who are Highly Sensitive People with a deep love for animals, are successful at managing many smaller projects rather than one mundane role and have an obvious purpose to serve mankind. 

If anything comes from this exercise, it will be a test of your ability to try something new without the fear of failure. Resilience and exploration are necessary in surviving in this crazy world. 

"I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then."
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland