Dion Matchan

What are you passionate about?

What’s your soapbox?

What is it that when you start talking about you just loose time and can’t seem to stop?

What’s that thing that fires you up and gets you started?

This thing is your passion and it is a powerful tool in your life, you may not be using it in your professional life but be assured it brings a lot of energy to your life.

Remember that feeling of the energy pulsing through your body when you just realized you have been holding the conversation for the last 20 minutes around that thing that lights you up, at first you may feel a little embarrassed but no matter what other people are thinking ,you are energized by speaking openly about something you are passionate about.

When it comes to other people you will probably consider the worst but whether people agree with your position on the issue or not most people are drawn to passionate people who have strong opinions about things. Think about the last time you heard someone go off on a ‘rant’, you may not of agreed with them but you were still enthralled.

The truth is that people love passionate people. It’s passionate people that make the world turn, they move us forward and inspire others to change, whether it is to change habits or change their thinking, they are inspiring none the less.

We all are drawn to these people because they remind us that somewhere deep within ourselves we are also highly passionate about something, something specific, something dear to us and part of us lights up when we are around other passionate people.

So what are you passionate about? What topics do you find yourself drawn to?

Take the time to work this out, it really is important to you even if you’re not sure of that yet. Not sure what your passion is ask people around you, they are likely to know what you love to talk about or what your favorite topics are.

What you are looking for, is not only what you are comfortable with talking about or what you talk about constantly, it’s the thing that excites you where you feel that energy in your chest.

The best way to find out if something suggested is your passion is start talking about it and be aware of how you are feeling. Is your energy building? Do you feel excited just by having the chance to express yourself? If yes, you have found it, if no, keep looking and maybe try again later.

You may also just catch yourself after a passionate ‘rant’ and go ohhh yeah, that’s it that makes sense. Any way you can go, to find your passion, you find it, sometimes even just being aware that you are passionate about something will bring it to the surface for you to discover.

Now two questions

What’s your passion?

How can you express it productively more often?

Now that you know your passion, it is important to express it. Two reasons; the first is that it reminds others that they have a passion inside themselves and secondly because it is something that brings energy and joy into your life and only good can come from that.

Do you know what your strengths are? What are you great at? Is there something that you do well naturally? Do you do these things in your job? If not, why not?

Alright enough questions, but I ask them because they are important. Many people don’t know their own strengths. It usually takes someone else noticing them and pointing them out or mentioning them to you.

If you can’t think of anything, maybe ask a friend or someone you work with, explain that you are looking for your strengths and would like to know what other people believe them to be. Think back to school, was there anything you were good at or really enjoyed that you may not have continued due to peer pressure or because of ‘career’ choices?

You may not believe this or maybe you will, you have many strengths in all different areas of your life but if your upbringing was anything like mine, the focus of those around you was more intent on fixing things that weren’t quite working instead of focus on taking a strength and making it great. This caused me to focus on hiding my weaknesses rather than showing my strengths, what about you?

Is there something specific you do well naturally, something you are great at? It may be in a hobby or something you only do occasionally, it maybe at work or at play but there will be a natural gift somewhere in your life. Now I didn’t ask you for natural gifts you understood or gifts you know how to turn into dollars just to name something, anything that you believe you do well naturally.

I found in school (thanks to a broken right arm and an inability to write with my left) that I enjoyed helping people (something I did in math class). I found with hindsight that people in class liked the way that I explained the problems and the way I made something complex, simple to understand. Years later, I remembered that the other students put their hand up and asked for my help instead of the teachers. At the time I was just trying to help and glad to be doing something rather than scratching my itchy arm under the plaster.

Sometimes it takes reflection at a distance to see where natural gifts raise their head, there have been other times in my life where this gift naturally raised it’s head but being unaware of it, I did it for a while then moved on.

Being aware of our natural abilities and combining them with our strengths is an amazing experience, one in which we want to recreate time and again, a place where you feel you belong and a place so wonderful you want to stay forever. Many great people in our society, people we look up to and admire are in this place, you can’t always describe it’s just that ‘something’.

Do you want that ‘something’ for yourself?

Then spend the time, explore your life and answer the fundamental questions we started with.

What are your strengths?

What do you do well naturally?

Take the time and explore, don’t concern yourself with what ‘job’ you can get with your skills that is a task for a different day, for now just answer these two questions, what are your strengths? What do you do well naturally?