You must know yourself to grow yourself. your strengths and weaknesses, your interests and opportunities. No one can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself. Deal with your issues. Reality has to be the foundations of your dreams. Reality requires awareness.
Three kinds of people.
- People Who Don’t Know What They Would Like to Do. Confused.
- People Who Know What They Would Like to Do But Don’t Do It. Frustrated.
- People Who Know What They Would Like to Do and Do It. Fulfilled.
People are not realistic about themselves.
- Counseling, dealing with weaknesses.
- Equipping, dealing with strengths.
How to Find Your Passion and Purpose.
The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.
Awareness questions to get on track.
1. Do you like what you are doing now?
- If you’re not enjoying what you do for a living, you need to take some time to examine why. Most people are more comfortable with old problems than with new solutions. It's very difficult to be fulfilled in life when you have left your heart. There is a direct relation between following your passion and reaching your potential.
- Your passion gives you the E&E factor: energy and excellence. Listen to your heart. Pay attention to what you love doing. Never leave something, always go to something.
- And are you good at it? If you are not good, make it your hobby, not your career. Giftedness trumps passion everyday. Believe + giftedness. You must have some kind of criteria for knowing if the desire you have matches the abilities you possess. Put your dream to the test. If you can believe it, you can achieve it: wrong. Discover your uniqueness; then discipline yourself to develop it.
4. Do You Know Why You Want to Do What You Would Like to Do?
- Knowing gives you inner strength when things go wrong. “Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.”
5. Do You Know What to Do So You Can Do What You Want to Do?
- Write out what steps you need to take to go where you desire to go, to do what you want to do. Make them as tangible as possible. Action. Accountability. Attraction.
6. Do you know people who do what you like to do?
- Whose advice can you get to help you along the way? Find people who do what you want to do with excellence. You have to get to those people. Proximity. Always ask, who yo know that I should know?
- Get committed. Pay people for their time if necessary.
- Be consistent. Meet purposefully every month with someone who can teach you.
- Be creative. Start with their books if you can’t meet them in person.
- Be purposeful. Spend two hours in preparation for every hour of interaction.
- Be reflective. Spend two hours in reflection for every hour of interaction.
- Be grateful. These people are gifts to your personal growth; be sure to let them know.
- Every person who can help you is not necessarily the right person to help you. You must pick and choose.
8. Will you pay the price to do what you want to do?
- What will it cost you in time, resources, and sacrifices? The great separator. Almost always when people stop growing is a price problem. Dream is free, journey is not. I got to the top the hard way—fighting my own laziness and ignorance every step of the way. People don't make changes unless it cost them something.
- You can start now. Begin before you are ready. Nobody ever got ready by waiting. You only get ready by starting. The greatest story ever told.
10. What Will It Be Like When You Get to Do What You’d Like to Do?
- It will be different. It will be more difficult. It will be better.
The only person that can write your story is you.
