Have you ever found yourself feeling like you’re working so incredibly hard and yet not achieving the results you want? Or worse, you’ve done all the work, and now things have taken off, and you’ve found yourself overwhelmed and wondering what kind of monster you’ve created.
In either case, you’ve done the chasing, but you’ve ended up catching something you really didn’t want: disappointment or supposed success that feels more like indentured servitude. So why are both leaving you cold?
Chasing is something we’re taught to do in our highly competitive and status-driven culture. The problem is that all this chasing can turn into running around for the sake of looking busy, trying to keep up, and trying to fit into the mold of what you think you “should” be doing.
And that’s where things go off the rails; the moment you lose sight of passion or misidentify it in the first place, you’re in trouble. Because what you’re ultimately chasing are feelings: not stuff, not money, not lifestyle.
To go after the right things, you need to stay focused. Here are three things to keep you on course as you let passion take the wheel and take you toward the feelings you most want to experience each and every day.
Passion Gets You Out of Your Head and Into Your Heart
At its core, chasing passion is a heart driven activity. Yes, you’ll need to use your noggin along the way but the driving force that will keep you going, even when things feel uncomfortable, overwhelming, or downright discouraging, is what your heart knows you are here to do.
Messages you receive from your passion aren’t around having a certain amount of money or owning certain things, they’re around deeper purposes such as helping others, creating a better world, or giving your gifts in such a way that you bring joy to others and feel deep joy yourself.
Your passion won’t allow you time to worry about keeping up with others or fitting into a mold; it will require that you do things your own way.
Passion Is About Alignment, Not “Supposed to” and “Should”
Because chasing passion naturally comes from a heart-centered place, it comes from a place of alignment, your alignment. This is the alignment that comes from living and working in ways that uniquely work for you to bring about the change you want to see in the world.
It does not come from a place of comparing yourself to others and trying to fit yourself into the current box of what’s new and hot on social media platforms, what other people are doing, or what others may advise you to do. In other words, alignment will pull you toward what you must do, and away from what you’re “supposed to” and “should” do.
Chasing passion aligns you with what you are meant to do and allows you to do it in a way that feels effortless,
even if that means you must work very hard.
Does this seem contradictory? How can I work very hard and have it feel effortless you ask. It’s because when you are in alignment, you know the next right step. You feel what needs to happen and you make the right choices and take the right actions to make those next steps happen -even if those choices and actions involve difficult decisions.
Alignment with passion will never require you to do more than you actually can,
it will instead require you to do more than you ever thought you could.
The more you work from your heart, the more your natural alignment will show up in what you do and how you spend your time. And how you spend your time is how you spend your life so choose what you do carefully.
Passion is Always About Permission
One of the biggest challenges you may have when trying to follow passion and follow it consistently is permission. And this can be tricky because you’ll tell yourself (in your noggin) that you’re going to Follow Your Passion, but your heart may not be willing to get on the bus without a bit more convincing which means….
Deep down you haven’t really given yourself permission. And having the AOK from both your heart and your head is crucial to get to that place of knowing. A place of knowing is where the right choice and right action come through clearly, AND you then are able to make the choice and take the action.
Giving yourself permission is a crucial step in chasing passion and a step you may have to repeat over time. But it will get easier. Giving yourself permission to be curious, learn, and reflect as you do new and exciting (and sometimes scary and intimidating) things is the choice you must make to ultimately get out of your own way and start making the right choices and taking the right steps.
By giving yourself permission to acknowledge and chase your passion,
you give yourself permission to learn, grow, and do things you never thought possible.
Are You Chasing Passion – Key Questions to Ask Yourself
To stay consistent with being in your heart, staying aligned, and giving yourself permission, ask yourself the following questions on a regular basis:
- Am I overthinking what I want to do or am I acting from my heart?
- How is what I’m spending my time on each day in alignment with what I know I am put here on earth to do?
- Am I giving myself permission to chase my passion and if not, how can I give myself that permission?
- If I’m not chasing passion, what is out of alignment? What next right choice and right action should I take to start moving in the correct direction?
- What do I hope to learn by chasing my particular passion?
