This is Installment #1 of my new e-book, Lessons From The Passionist: How To Turn Passion Into Purpose To Create Greater Meaning and Joy in Your Life. I sincerely hope you enjoy reading this book and share your stories, as they relate to each chapter, over the next several months.
INTRODUCTION
Why is it that some people live fulfilling and fascinating lives while others just seem to toil away the days wishing their life was different? Why is it that some people go through life with a sense of joy, even in the face of life’s persistent adversity, while others seem perpetually miserable, even in the face of apparent success?
I’ve spent the past thirty years observing people (myself included) and their motivations, watching them develop and execute plans to achieve goals in a variety of endeavors, including sports, business, creative fields, education, family life and support of worthy causes that help people or society in profound ways. I’ve worked closely with people who have achieved great success in all of these areas and I’ve witnessed great failures. I’ve succeeded and failed myself, and have studied my own reactions to both outcomes.
Through all this time and observation, what has proven instructive in understanding how to create a fulfilling and fascinating life has been the study of the answers to the following questions (look for my periodic interviews with amazing people from all walks of life and professions, called Passion Profiles, throughout the coming installments of this e-book):
- What drives people to do the things they do in life?
- How do people get started with something? (In any endeavor, what’s the first and best step into the unknown)?
- What motivates people to persist in the face of daunting odds against success? (How do you overcome the fear of starting something new and unknown?)
- What motivates people to persist through failure? (News Flash: Everyone Fails!)
- What motivates people to persist in the face of success (How do you maintain the drive to improve, explore and grow once you have achieved your initial goals)?
- What about success really satisfies people…and what about failure really frustrates people?
- Why do people willfully allow themselves to lead unfulfilling lives when they know life is a one-time deal (no do-overs here!)
- How do you change course at any time in life to create the life you really want?
These are tough questions for anyone to answer and acting on the answers is even tougher. I have had to answer them many times for myself and have helped countless people wrestle with many of these questions through my consulting work, my role as a parent and as a coach.
There is an underlying theme constant in the answer to each of these questions: PASSION!
Passion drives people. Passion creates action. Passion generates ideas and solutions. Passion helps people persist. Passion keeps people motivated. Passion prevents people from settling. And passion causes people to change. Ultimately, passion creates a fulfilling life. Win or lose, success or failure, pursuing passion creates fulfillment in life. All of the trappings people usually associate with success are just icing on the cake.
Identifying, understanding, articulating, nurturing and exercising your passion or passions are the keys to a fulfilling life. Any other motivation will leave you just short of satisfaction. You may be able to buy a nice car without passion. You may pay your mortgage without passion. You may have the money to put your kids through college without passion. You may even get rich without passion. But you are likely to feel that something is missing in your life if your passions go undetected, and worse, ignored. If you blindly bound through life on any plan other than the one driven by your unique passion or passons, chances are you will wake up one day wondering where your life went and why you didn’t do the things you really wanted to do.
In his book, Ego is the Enemy, Ryan Holiday characterizes passion as a bad thing. In fact, he has a chapter entitled Don’t Be Passionate. His contention is that unbridled passion leads to disastrous results, and I would have to agree in many cases. Passion should always be tempered with reason.
Holiday says, “Passion typically masks a weakness. It’s breathlessness and impetuousness and franticness are poor substitutes for discipline, for mastery, for strength and purpose and perseverance.” My response is yes and no. If all you do in life is operate strictly from the emotions created by passion, yes, I agree that is bad. But if you use passion as the catalyst to start an action in your life, then no, I do not agree with him. Without passion there is no action. It gets us off the couch to actually do something in life. Discipline doesn’t do that. Mastery doesn’t do that. We act out of passion and persist out of purpose. At some point, after passion has worked its magic and given us drive, discipline and persistence can take us to mastery and purpose. And passion can bring us back to action when we hit stumbling blocks and want to quit. Passion gives us the energy to persist. Passion, harnessed in the right way, can be used to keep the spark alive in our lives so that the inevitable pain and drudgery that we all experience at times does not stop us from moving forward.
Like many positive things, passion can be misused with disastrous consequences. However, without it, mankind would cease harnessing one of its biggest strengths. It’s human-ness.
So we begin the journey…Read Installment # 2 next week, where I will explain how people find and develop their passions in life, and how you can find and develop yours!.
Until Next Week, Live Every Moment!
Robert (aka The Passionist)
Recent Comments