by Pamela Grundy

Created on: March 03, 2008

If you could find your true passion and devote your waking life to it, just by completing a series of simple exercises, would you do those exercises? What would you say if I told you that getting to the answer "yes" on this question is your biggest, possibly only, real hurdle? The truth is, most people are a bit afraid of finding their true passion. Living with passion, by definition involves exposing one's true self to the world. Exposing one's true self to the world involves risk. Risk is scary. Fear can be a formidable obstacle. Therefore, the first two steps to finding your true passion are 1) to be willing to face your fears, and 2) to be willing to accept what you discover about yourself and the world.

Most of us are conditioned to believe that if we have a dream, it is probably unattainable. Unattainability is built right into our understanding of the word "dream." Women especially are encouraged to live for others and put their own desires on the back burner. Men are rewarded to for hard work in nose-to-the-grindstone traditional fields. After years of hard work and postponing personal desires the day comes when desire is forgotten. When asked, "What is your true passion?", lots of people answer "I don't know" or "I don't think I have one."

Yes, you do.

Make a list of everything, however trivial or seemingly foolish, that gives you pleasure. Spend at least a day building this list. Set it aside, wait a couple of days, then make a list of things you would do if you had unlimited time and unlimited funds. Put everything on this list too, no matter how silly or impossible. Set these lists aside.

Now make a list of all your most unique characteristics, both positive and negative. Draw a line down the middle of the page, and once your list is complete, on the other side of the line, think of a way to phrase your bad characteristics as good and your good ones as bad. So, if you put "patient" one one side as a good characteristic, on the other side you might put "unassertive." If you put "bossy" on one side as bad, you might put "good at delegating" on the other side, and so on. The point of this list is to help you see all of yourself as both "good" and "bad", and to show you how skilled you really are.

Now go back to your first two lists and look at what you have. At this point some themes should be emerging. Maybe you have written "down time, gardening, and fresh air" as items on your pleasures list, and "travel, write a book, quit my job" as items on your unlimited

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