Finding Your Passion in Life

In my early thirties, I was extremely unhappy with the way my life had turned out. I knew something had to give so I decided to go on a quest to heal and change my life. It was on that journey I realized I didn’t know who the hell I REALLY was. I had no idea what I was passionate about and was faced with questions that seemed easy, but I was racking my brain trying to figure out the answers.

It was easy to list things I enjoyed like my hobbies, being a mom blah blah blah, but when asked what I was passionate about, I had to sit down and really do some soul searching. Don’t get me wrong family is great, but I’ll be honest and admit it made me put some personal stuff on the backburner.

I needed to get back to me and decide what I wanted for myself, turns out it was more challenging than I thought.

I had to ask myself questions like: What am I naturally good at? What do I enjoy doing the most? What meaningful thing would I like to be known for? What do others say I’m good at?

I came up with answers like I’m passionate about my children, I like thought provoking conversations, I like helping people figure things out. But none of these answers made me feel like I was adequately answering the question.

It took a serious self-assessment to help me realize I didn’t know what I wanted or how I could truly become the person I wanted to be.

I had to tell myself that I’m still on a journey of self-discovery. It helped take some pressure off all the “figure your life out” stuff. I realized I wanted the freedom to be genuinely happy with my everyday life. I was tired of waking up not wanting to deal with the day or my job or my home, on and on. I come from a family of working-class people, so it was go to college and get a job, or just get a job and work. I tried a bunch of jobs and tried to start a business or two but couldn’t find the guidance I needed or didn’t get encouraging advice at all.

Sometimes other people’s expectations clouded what I wanted for myself because I was afraid they’d think it was silly, impractical or too ambitious. When we have a strong tugging on our spirit to move differently, it’s important to be led by it and not let other people’s opinion sway us.

A lot of the habits I grew up with weren’t getting me the results I wanted, so I figured why not try something different?

I come from a lower middle class Black Christian family. At times criticism came easier than encouragement so some of the things I was doing I kept to myself. I had to ignore being told I’m doing stuff like “white people” or that I “don’t need certain things” because what I had was good enough. At times it made me feel like I wasn’t being true to my roots or that I was being too ambitious wanting more when things weren’t bad, but I learned that couldn’t be further from the truth.

You have a responsibility to yourself to do things differently to get a better outcome or result no matter what people say.

I started reading self-help books and looked up meditation practices on the internet. I’d listen to meditation music on YouTube and began meditating daily. I would wait until I had a moment of quiet after I put my girls to bed. First to breathe deeply in and out, clear my mind, then think about all the things I’m grateful for, this helped me relax and de-stress. Ask “What do you really want out of life and what is it that you’re supposed to be doing?”

I did this for a few days without getting any answers, but I kept trying and I really did start to get clarity. This practice cleared my head, opened my heart and dug to the core of what my spirit desired.

I recognized that true happiness, success, and a meaningful existence are all wrapped up in me realizing who I am and what I was born to be.

After several weeks of doing this and reading a chapter a night I realized that I had a strong desire to help people have better lives and relationships because that’s what I wanted for myself. It finally came to me that I wanted to be a writer, coach and therapist.

It took for me to do something I wasn’t used to and that was focusing solely on myself. I did the work and found my happy place as a result. You can do the same and find what you should be doing and set goals & take a small step toward accomplishing it each day. I’m happier now than I’ve ever been, and I wake up in the morning looking forward to working toward my goals each day.

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