Last week I got an email from Scott Dinsmore that hit on two of my favorite pieces of common sense career advice: 1) find your passion in life, and 2) become a lifelong learner. Scott did a great job of tying the two together. Take a look at what he has to say…
I can guarantee you find your passion. I can guarantee you do work you love.
Don’t believe me? Then you probably aren’t ready to work your ass off.
If you are, then read on.
When I tell people I write and coach on how to find work you love, so many of them scream back “I need your help!”
I calmly respond with a question: “Have you read any of the 100+ books out there on purpose and passion?”
I proceed to hear pins drop.
It’s not that complicated…
In the past 8 years I’ve tested just about everything under sun when it comes to finding my passion and doing work I actually give a sh*t about. I now spend close to 100% of my working hours doing things I love. I am grateful, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence.
Getting here wasn’t easy and it wasn’t fast. There’ve been plenty of late nights (and there still are), but it’s been a ton of fun.
And one thing’s for sure. The fact that I’m doing what lights me on fire right now, does not by any means mean it will be the same thing ten years from now. That’s the best part! I almost guarantee it won’t. At least not exactly the same.
As long as you are currently spending your time doing what you believe you are best at and you are meant to do, that’s a life well lived.
That’s fulfillment.
Every better yet, that’s excitement!
Literally I think I’ve tried everything. Some include:
• Starting businesses
• Traveling the world
• Getting to know people in all walks of life
• Hiring a coach
• Being a coach
• Taking negotiation seminars
• Attending Tony Robbins events
• Reading books – a lot of books. Mainly personal development.
• Reading workbooks
• Taking personality tests
• Taking personal strengths test
• Attempting at first seemingly impossible fitness challenges
• Meeting entrepreneurs
• Working for companies with 10,000+ employees
• Working for companies with 12 employees
• Working for companies with 1 employee
• Writing blog articles, stories, ideas, journals
• Taking university courses
I could go on. Hopefully you get the point.
In all this there is a common thread. There is one thing that will ensure you the very best chance at finding what you love to do and actually living it.
You ready for it?
Learn.
That’s it.
Become obsessed with learning. Learn to love it. Do it every day in some way. One day it might be reading or watching a TED talk, listening to a podcast, having lunch with a new person, interviewing a business owner or sitting down and being completely still for 30 minutes.
Then actually make something with what you learn.
The process is ridiculously simple:
Step 1: Learn.
Step 2: Experiment.
Step 3: Repeat.
Step 4: Do what you love.
Step 5: When restless, repeat.
Tweet 7 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Figure out what you really want to do. Work you love will make it easier to create the life and career success you want and deserve.” Scott says that it took him eight years to get to a place where he loves what he does every day. I was lucky I figured out that I wanted to be an independent career success coach by the time I was 25. It took me 13 years to realize my dream, but I’ve been living it for the past 23 years – and plan to keep right on living it for the next 23.
Tweet 81 in Success Tweets says, “Become a lifelong learner. The half life of knowledge is rapidly diminishing. Staying in the same place is the same as going backwards.” I am constantly learning; especially about my passion – career success. I read books, print magazines and blog posts, listen to podcasts, watch videos, engage in conversations with other career success coaches – anything I can do to make sure that I stay current and moving forward. I don’t want to be in reverse. I came across Scott’s blog post because of my pursuit of learning.
As Scott suggests, it’s important to not only learn, but to use what you learn. As the U.S. Steel pencils my Dad brought home from work used to say, “Knowing is not enough.” Knowing is not enough. You have to do. We all have to do. Treat all of your tasks associated with your job as an opportunity to put your learning to use and become the career success you deserve to be.
The common sense career success coach point here is simple. You can create the life and career success you want and deserve if you find your passion, learn everything you can about it, and then apply what you learn in your daily work. As Scott Dinsmore says, “As long as you are currently spending your time doing what you believe you are best at and you are meant to do, that’s a life well lived.” I would add that it’s likely to be a life full of career success.
That’s my common sense career advice on the importance of finding you passion and of lifelong learning. What do you think? What is your passion? How did you find it? What do you do to keep learning about it? Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment. As always, thanks for reading my daily thoughts on life and career success. I value you and I appreciate you.
Bud
PS: If you haven’t already done so, you can download a free copy of my latest book Success Tweets Explained. It’s a whopping 395 pages of common sense career advice explaining each of the tweets in Success Tweets in detail. Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.
Speak Your Mind