Is It Possible to Align Your Passions Into a Profession?

Is it possible to envision a dream life or career and then actually live it? I would like to submit to you that it appears to indeed be possible. There are many who from the beginning had strong gut instincts to pursue a career in which they were not only naturally gifted, but truly enjoyed doing it. If this is you, consider yourself very fortunate! This is the place that many of us have quietly desired to get to, but reasons as to why “it’s impossible’ get in the way and we often don’t make the moves to act on it!

What Is My Passion? Ask Your 6-yr. old Self!

Let’s unpack this here for a second. Why does it matter what your 6 yr. old self liked or was good at? It matters for several reasons:

• If you are feeling restless in any part of your life there is no doubt that something is preventing you from connecting to a part of your life that brought you happiness or fulfillment in the past. We get so busy knocking things of the to-do list and keeping the engines going for our families, many times we have no idea who we are and what we like or what we are naturally good at.

• If we have no outlet for our creative mind or relaxation; things get pent up and eventually boil over. It is here that we can take the opportunity to get quiet and try to journey back to our youth where many of the answers are. • At that time in our lives, we did everything by feel. We were enthusiastic and played with the toys we were attracted to, we did activities that were fun with reckless abandon, we associated with others with a true and authentic version of ourselves because we didn’t know we should hold anything back or that people would “judge” us!

• We were never afraid to fail so we tried things and succeeded in many of them because we just instinctively knew what we were good at! We just had a sixth sense so to speak until the world tainted that a little bit and doubt and self-awareness slowly crept it. Personal Case Study: I know for myself; I had a vivid imagination and loved to write stories or draw stories (before I could write). I wrote about cats and other animals and I belted out songs at the top of my lungs at church every weekend. I put on dance and singing recitals for my family and would drag all of my stuffed animals around the house with me wherever I went so none of them would feel left out or unloved! As I got a little older, I was always the listening ear for my friends and always wanted to try and help them solve their problems and feel good about themselves. Ironically, I am still that same person, however, I lost touch with many of those parts of me along the way and because of that, the course of my life was then slightly altered. I was always surviving but not always thriving.

“Work Doesn’t Feel Like Work, When You Do What You Love”

Many of us want this …but many just don’t have it! How can we fix this? Start with connecting to your passions and enjoying them as hobbies or decompression tactics first. Then see where it flows from there. A creative mind unleashed is quite powerful!

• Doing what you love whether you get paid for it or not. A perfect illustration of this for me…MOM LIFE. Once I became a mother, all the old tendencies (from my childhood) flowed through me as natural as breathing. I was and am a nurturer and a natural born connector and communicator. I am always able to put my natural gifts and talents to use in raising my children; playing games, connecting and laughing and enjoying every minute. At the risk of sounding cliché, I was truly “BORN FOR THIS”. I stayed home with them and never got bored or felt unhappy, it was a natural state of bliss for me. My friends who stayed in the workforce full time while raising their kids thought I was insane but it came so easy for me because I was called and gifted (with patience) to do it.

• You don’t have to create your own business to get paid for doing what you love. I wanted to give a shout out to all of those people who found their path much earlier then the rest of us and they are going out there everyday working hard and embracing the new challenges with a high level of excitement and vigor. My husband is one of those people. He has always loved his career path and continues to love and embrace what he does. He’s one of the lucky ones for sure.

• Passions can turn into lucrative professions. I don’t need to rattle off the long never ending list of people who have made their passions into a thriving career for themselves…(Hi, Oprah!)…For me she is the ultimate example of this because her ability to communicate and connect with all types of people has catapulted her to the heights of success that I am sure she never even dreamed of. There are a million stories of entrepreneurs who turned their passions and “big ideas” into a thriving business…from bakers to florists to marketing agency owners to food truck vendors…the list goes on. All around your community you see people living their dreams because they reconnected to their passions and leaned into the possibility that just maybe they could make a living doing it. Start entertaining the possibility of getting paid for doing and being who you were meant to be. What an amazing life!

I am passionate about connecting people with their purpose and optimizing their gifts into a fulfilling career or life path. I especially focus on the big transitions of life. I would welcome the opportunity to hear from you about your story or feature your journey or success story at http://inspiredactionlife.blog. I can be reached at inspiredactionlife@gmail.com