A common saying is ‘do what you’re passionate about’. Passion is certainly a huge assistance when it comes to completion of a task, but how do you get passionate to begin with?

Repeatedly carrying out these 4 key steps will create passion:

1 Discipline

2 Opportunity

3 Motivation

4 Success

  • Passion

1 - Discipline

'Consistent repetition of an activity, even if it is not desired at the time.'

Discipline is like a muscle, growing stronger the more it is used. Maintain all small beneficial habits as regular exercise.

People who seek passion must first recognize the value of discipline. Without regular participation in some form you will not see opportunities in their correct light.

Maintain small beneficial habits as regular exercise. Partaking in 30 days of discipline, or simply making your own 30 days of discipline is also great exercise.

It is difficult to see the full potential of opportunities, let alone leverage them to the best possible outcome, without having discipline.

2 - Opportunity

An awareness of the type of opportunities you’re looking for provides a lot of value. Being aware enables you to cultivate the necessary skills which enhance the chances of the correct opportunities happening.

A lot of opportunities come from out of the blue and often are complete luck. Often the best opportunities come from recognizing trends. Having the correct skills to follow the trend that is already in motion means you can use it to profit yourself.

People who have a broad set of skills can open themselves up to many opportunities. There is a lot of room for leverage and progression once involved with an opportunity.

Unsure of what skill to do? Broad skill sets can be the best path as you want to experience success in different places to see what brings you the most satisfaction and joy.

On the flip side however, having a good idea what you're passionate about means you are able to focus on a specialized and narrow set of skills.

The potential opportunities provided by this will be unseen without specialization. These can catapult you to success. The cost of this is countless missed opportunities for things you did not know you could be passionate about.

3 - Motivation

Opportunity inherently becomes motivation. People often misconceive this and assume you must have motivation for opportunities to arise.

Motivation appears when you see a chance to do something or an opportunity worthy of pursuit. It is unrealistic to have motivation without opportunity or an understanding of the potential opportunities.

Maintain discipline to find opportunities and this step will happen naturally.

4 - Success

Success comes from your frame of mind. Ensuring you have goals framed in a way you perceive as success from them is essential.

Of course it is toughest when it is going badly for obvious reasons. The most effective way consistently realise success, is aiming to simply learn. Learning can be looked at in the sense of 'leveling up' and more prepared for next time, therefore a success.

Take note when you feel yourself learning and when recently learnt knowledge is applied beneficially will enhance this feeling.

The more you feel like you're succeeding, the happier you will be with what you're doing. More motivation will come naturally. Now the cycle that breeds passion is in full swing.

Passion

Once you have reached the stage of success, this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Discipline becomes easier, consequently more opportunities arise from discipline and motivation occurs due to the opportunities. Success is felt from correctly framed achievements.

It is important to have large dreams. But with discipline and through every repeated step, it is important to constantly set low goals. This creates something sustainable.

If you wanted to start woodwork, simply making your first birdhouse with just the frame of mind that you will complete each step will cause success to be felt and the cycle will begin.

Conclusion

Everyone is trying to find the next 'big thing', which is unlikely to come out of nowhere. Those consciously looking for the next big thing can be playing with fire and fall to frustration if it is not found. By looking for the small insignificant step you are able to draw satisfaction, and use this to leverage you.

If someones goal is to work for NASA, they're not going to apply there first. They will just fail and probably not continue. Starting small, perhaps at your local science club, finding an opportunity, geting motivated about it and feeling success, breeds passion and the cycle will repeat.

Please comment any thoughts or questions this provoked within you.

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