“The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play.” – Arnold Toynbee.

How does it feel when people around you talk about their passions? It’s like everyone has already reached the “challenges” part while chasing their passions, and here you are, figuring out what that passion is.

Wondering why passion is vital in the first place?

More than 60% of employers believe that you don’t perform well in their roles if you aren’t passionate about your work. However, that’s not the point here. When you are passionate about what you do, work feels less like a chore and more like fulfilling your dreams and aspirations.

But how do you get started? Here’s how to choose a career if you don’t know about your passions yet!

Analyze yourself

There is always something that you always look forward to. It could be a specific task, time, or something unrelated to your current profile. There must be something that you always look forward to for some reason.

If you feel confused, you can begin by identifying your natural abilities. In a book named”Finding Your Element: How to Discover Your Talents and Passions and Transform Your Life,” you will find a roadmap to start doing something that is in sync with your natural abilities. Thus, it will lead you to find your element.

The book’s author, Robinson, breaks it down into two main categories: aptitudes and abilities. Let’s help you understand this with an example. Think of yourself as someone in a school who loved mathematical concepts or an athlete who dominated field games. That’s an aptitude. Contrary to that, you can learn abilities through demonstrating your skills or experience.

So, if you don’t have a natural talent, you can replace that with your hard work or practice. But how to find your MAP (Motivated Abilities Pattern) when you haven’t found your passion yet? Here are the elements of finding your passion through due diligence.

  • Abilities: Here you will find out your natural skills or talents. For instance, it could be analytical minded, persuasive, social, good with hands, and others.

 

  • Subject Matter: It does not mean the subject itself. It simply means where you naturally gravitate toward. It could be abstract ideas, concepts, people, animals, numbers or figures, tools or machines, etc.

 

  • Situations: It is something around the environment you work best. It could be a flexible, rigid, or collaborative setting.

 

  • Work relationships: It is about finding out how you operate. Whether you like to operate with people as a team player, collaborator, or coordinator.

 

  • Outcomes: What type of payout do you wish to accomplish. Does it revolve around problem solving, bringing some systemic changes to the system, or having some work unique?

This is why you must determine these pillars and come up with achievements meaningful to you, personally and professionally. Here are some questions to consider when analyzing yourself or your interests.

  1. What events gave you a sense of satisfaction? It could be your hobby, activities you do or work-related accomplishments?
  2. Can you identify the pattern?
  3. Have you always been naturally inclined to do well when achieving such accomplishments?
  4. What do you need to hone your aptitudes?
  5. Can you think of some career options that align with your natural ability?

Also, Read: 17 life lessons I took the longest to learn

Take a career test

Now you have listed down what excites you. But if you want to see if you wish to stay with that option for long, you must find a reasonable reason. You can find that using a career test. It would be great to get some inspiration. Although no test helps you 100%, it can help you align your goals and follow a roadmap to reach there.

These are primarily designed to help career seekers discover their skills, aptitudes, interests, and other elements to unleash career opportunities by using career advancement platforms. It will help identify strengths along with areas of weakness.

They are quite helpful in getting individuals to consider new career options missed previously. It will further allow you to self discover your interests and prospects. For example, you can opt for free tests like 16 personalities, 123 career tests, what career is right for me? and many others.

You can also receive paid consultations to find out what excites you and is aligned with your interests.

Think about your role models

Once you have a fair idea of what might interest you, you can further your due diligence by asking yourself about the people or books or online courses that you spend time reading about. You might not know, but there might be a pattern.

For instance, you might secretly want to become a novelist, a coder, a designer, an entrepreneur, or a programmer. However, your self-doubt led you to dismiss the idea. Add them to your list even if you find them unrealistic.

As per the psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, PhD, you need to determine your passions by noticing your state of flow when doing certain activities or tasks. If you lose track of time because you were doing an activity meaningful to you, you can find something related to it and make it a pattern.

You can ask yourself the following questions:

  1. If you are currently working in a job, find where your motivations lie. Did you do it to please yourself or others?
  2. Does your current or the role you envision for yourself align with your achievement stories and passion?
  3. What type of conversations and or hobbies do you feel excited about?

Also, Read: Should you change jobs or stay put for professional growth?

Ask your group of trusted friends

If you haven’t found your passion yet, you can try speaking to as many people as possible. Since you have already discovered your interests, you can get in touch with those already working in that industry. You can use networking events, a phone call, or LinkedIn to ask all the questions you can think of.

But are you wondering what those questions are? Here are some to help you get started!

  1. What has your career path been?
  2. Why this industry?
  3. What is your current role like? What about making you get up every morning?
  4. What are your aspirations?
  5. Is there anything that wasn’t a part of your career path before?
  6. What are the skills that are most important to succeed in this career?
  7. Any advice for me?

 Go for money until you find your passion

You have everything you need. Still, you have no idea whether you are passionate about it. But it’s time that you put the research into action. Pick the one from the list that excites you the most. You have to experiment and try whether you want to do it for the foreseeable future.

This will help you motivate and get feedback to improve your chances of finding your passion soon. If you like to look forward to it every morning, congrats! You have found yours. If not, keep experimenting. After all, nothing happens overnight. You need to do something, get good at it, and be passionate about it.

You will find your passion only by demonstrating your knowledge. Or else the exploring part will never cease.

Final Thoughts

Choosing a career if you haven’t found your passion yet often overwhelms you. But if you start thinking about it, there will be certain challenges initially. However, it will help you find a career you love and the journey you will love. Revisit this guide if you think about switching careers and have no idea where to begin.