Passport to Passion
Passion is a feeling of excitement and intensity. The energy of passion fuels a fulfilled life, and supports the growth and development of our personal purpose and potential. When was the last time you felt pure passion? Do you even know what you're passionate about? Would you recognize an opportunity to reconnect with your personal passion if one presented itself? In childhood, you were filled with passion. You knew instinctively what you loved, and you probably approached each day with joy and anticipation. You were truly connected with your passions, and you were living authentically. Then, you grew up. You got responsible, and your passion was replaced by the multitude of "shoulds" and "musts" thrust upon you by an adult world. In my work as a coach, I've had the opportunity to help many people rediscover and reconnect with their passion. The process I use involves identifying and aligning with personal values. While much of our culture equates values with a sense of morality, in the coaching world values are referred to as those qualities or interests which you're naturally drawn to or inclined to experience. They're the feelings or experiences in life you truly appreciate, and both passion and fulfillment live on the other side of their discovery and integration. When you know what is passionately and excitingly important to you, you will become very clear. You will begin to approach life differently, and set goals with more vision and intensity. You will embrace both success and failure with a greater level of acceptance and insight, and you will enjoy the process of living more fully. The process of rediscovering what your values, and thus your passions, are is fun and easy. You can begin by asking yourself a few questions. What Are Your Favorite Past Times? If I were to give you one free day ? meaning you would get paid, everything on your "to do" list would be accomplished, and everyone in your family would be taken care of, what would you do? Would you spend the day in the sun reading a good book? Would you cook a gourmet meal? Would you go antiquing, or take in a matinee? Would you spend the afternoon with your spouse, or with friends? Would you spend the day working out, or being pampered in a day spa? Once you've determined what you'd do, decide why that would be so satisfying. What about these activities interests you? For example, if you'd prefer to spend the day with friends, it might be that you really appreciate the connection and communication you give and receive when you're with people you care about. If you chose to go antiquing, discovery may be exciting to you. If working out or spending the day at a spa sounded heavenly, it could be that health, fitness, and wellness are potential values. The things you love hold significant clues to unlocking your values. Once you've identified the specific activities that attract you, the key to defining your values lives in identifying the feelings within those activities that fulfill you. When Do You Feel Most Natural? When do you feel most natural? Where are you most at ease? When your competence is so seemingly effortless that others recognize you for your abilities, it's likely you're near a natural aptitude, and these abilities will frequently lead to your values. For example, do you effortlessly create systems to organize tasks or physical items? Order may be a value. Do you easily spend quiet time with yourself? Perhaps you value solitude. Does creating something where nothing existed before thrill you? You might consider building or manifestation for your values. Nature has purpose. The more closely aligned you are with your natural abilities; the closer you will be to defining your values, and the more likely you will be to experience great passion and fulfillment on a recurring basis. What Could You Teach? Do you have substantial knowledge about a specific subject? Have you ever been told you should write a book or teach a class? What would your book or class be about? Our interests, those things we are drawn to spend time learning about or talking about, are related to our values. I worked in Corporate America for ten years before becoming a coach. On "the side" I read book after book about self development. I went to ten seminars per year, and I worked with my own coach. I loved talking with others about human development, and I invested a great deal of time and energy mentoring my staff. I was naturally gravitating toward one of my highest values ? growth. Your inherent interests will help you define your values. Pay close attention to the experiences and topics you're naturally drawn to, and you will discover the passion at the source of that intrigue. Intentional Integration The passion living within you can fuel your life. You can jump out of bed first thing in the morning, excited to take on the world. You can stretch yourself beyond personal limits which may have held you back in the past. You need only connect with the source of inspiration and enthusiasm inside of you. Once you do this, your whole life can change. Life and Business Design Expert Kim Fulcher is the founder, president and CEO of Compass Life and Business Designs, a professional coaching, training, and publishing company. Her work as an entrepreneur, company leader, author, speaker, and business coach has resulted in her national recognition as an expert in personal and professional success. Kim works with her clients to maximize their business results while balancing their busy lives, and speaks to organizations throughout The United States on subjects ranging from leadership to life balance. She is the author of the upcoming book "Remodel Your Reality; Seven Steps to Rebalance Your Life and Reclaim Your Passion" and co-author of "Lead With Purpose. Live With Passion. A Femalepreneur's Guide to Small Business Success". For a weekly dose of inspiration and a host of Free tools and products, visit our website at http://www.CompassLifeDesigns.com
Related News
|
 |
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Budda In Your Back Pocket
The other day I was late for something. Not very late. In fact, I was actually on time but an angry voice berated me anyway, saying, "You are late! There will be no seats left. You wouldn't run late if you were more organized!" It was a terrible feeling, especially because the voice was partially right.
The Value of Coaching to Support Your Business and Your Life
In our daily lives as well as in our businesses, we typically operate from the perspective of doing the best we know how to do in dealing with life's challenges and opportunities. If we knew what it would take to be more effective in our relationships, more productive in our activities or more successful in reaching our goals, we would surely alter our behavior to correspond with these insights. The only access we ordinarily have to impact our lives comes from the areas of "what we know" and "what we don't know." In our efforts to achieve more, we usually resort to increasing what we do know by learning to do things a little better, a little different or we simply do more of a behavior that produced a certain result for us in the past. This behavior can predictably result in small, incremental increases in our ability to impact our business and our world. Likewise, by educating ourselves in the arena of "what we don't know," this knowledge then becomes part of what we now do know. As an example, if you are computer illiterate and you apply yourself to learn how to adeptly operate a computer, you will have successfully taken something that you do not know and converted it into what you now know. More than 95% of our efforts are spent in these two arenas ? what we know and what we don't know.
The Real Truth About Working Smarter, Not Harder
Running a business or department can often stretch you to the limit.
Essence of Awakeness
Be conscious, aware, and alert. Pay attention. Remember when you were in elementary school and the teacher used to say pay attention now, this is important? Well, this is important. Wake up! What does it take to wake up an adult? Many people go through life on automatic, doing life as it comes along. What kind of things occurs that is considered a wake up call? The death of a loved one, a miracle, a near death experience, the birth of a child, a divorce, a marriage, a spiritual experience, a great accomplishment, a serious illness, an award, losing a job, winning the lottery, which of these would wake you up?
How to Kill Fear When Dealing with Aggressive People
The book Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers is regarded as a self help classic. Have you read it?
Take a Chance, Win a Prize
I think that we're all probably familiar with the fairground rant 'take a chance, win a prize'. Whenever I hear this call to action, I immediately break out into a cold sweat. Whether the test is to knock down 6 cans in pyramid formation or to throw a dart at a balloon, I'm there, almost hypnotically, pulling coins out of my pocket. And it doesn't really matter what prizes are on offer either. It could be stuffed panda bears, bubble makers or even Velcro wallets. What's important to me is rising to the challenge and having a go.
Purpose
Many people go through much of their lives without really thinking about their purpose. I don't mean a lofty, philosophic, and often unrealistic purpose that has us striving to save the world or solve the challenge of poverty throughout the world (although these are both admirable for those whose true purpose is to do so). What I am talking about is the individual and unique purpose that drives and grounds us. The one thing that gives meaning to our lives and motivates us to achieve our potential.
Attitude is Contagious - Would Anybody Want Yours?
Are you using the Life Potential you have been given? Or are you just existing?
Good Communication is Easy - Isn?t It?
My name is Steve Brummet and my business is to speak to businesses, teams, schools, churches, non profit organizations and just people about improving their communication skills. Most communication experts agree that good communication starts with understanding.
Business Career, Executive, Life Coaching Article Mechanisms of the Mind (Achieving Success)
Suppose that the human mind is nothing more than a bio-computer and that the function of this computer is to get its owner exactly what he says he wants.. The computer mind takes what you say very literally. So, if you say you cannot do something, the mind interprets that as a command and makes sure you cannot do it. If you say you are confused and don't know what you want, the mind makes sure you have that experience.
Five Steps to Vocational Passion: A Disciplined Plan for Major Mid-life Changes
There's a famous song lyric that asks: "Is that all there is?" Every seven seconds, an American turns 50 years old. So there's a good chance that song is running through some of their heads.
The Problem with Blame? If You Fix the Blame, You Ignore the Problem
Have you ever found yourself in a hurry to leave the house for an appointment when you could not find your car keys?
How to Save Yourself from Negative Influences
Watching the news can be hazardous to your health.
What is Life Coaching?
An recent article in Money Magazine said that "A coach may be the guardian angel you need to rev up your career." In fact, if you pick up any major newspaper or magazine, you are bound to come across a glowing article on coaching. It is one of the fastest growing careers, with an estimated 20,000 coaches in the United States. Because coaching is a relatively new profession, there are many people calling themselves "coaches"---unfortunately not all of whom are fully qualified. You should know that there is no required professional certification process, although it is coming in the near future.
The Tolerance Effect
While working with a client several months ago, we went through a process of identifying areas of personal strengths and weaknesses. Through this exercise, we discussed various characteristics and ended up deciding that there was opportunity for improvement in her level of "tolerance". A funny thing happened after that. When she found herself in a situation that had previously triggered a negative reaction be it disappointment, irritation, frustration, anger or even animosity (usually focused on the person in the car ahead of her who didn't use their turn signal), the word "tolerance" would flash in her head and she could immediately change the way she reacted to the situation.
Building a Strong Coaching Practice
As a person who has been around the coaching profession for a number of years, I wish I could say that my practice is full right now. But the fact is that I've been pursuing TV gigs in the last few years and haven't put much emphasis on building my individual coaching practice. I've also been blessed to receive several corporate coaching and training jobs so the individual coaching has taken a back seat.
Control, Helplessness, and Love
During my 35 years of counseling individuals, couples, families and business partners, I have discovered that an important purpose of our controlling behavior in our relationships is to avoid the feeling of helplessness. One of the hardest feelings to feel is helplessness. Most of us are unwilling to even know what we are and are not helpless over. Our controlling behavior toward others generally comes from our unwillingness to accept our helplessness over others' feelings and behavior. We do not want to know that we are helpless over whether another chooses to be loving and accepting toward us or judgmental and rejecting toward us.
How to Give Yourself a Check Up From the Neck Up
When was the last time you did some dedicated physical exercise?
Curse of Competence: How Being Good gets in the way of Becoming Great
Just before the storms hit last winter, my father-in-law and I replaced 26 feet of fence on my property. I must say, for a couple of non-handyman-sorts like the two of us, it is a very well done fence.
Tame The Financial Beast
Are holiday bills surprising you? Are you hoping that if you ignore your finances long enough, maybe they will fix themselves?
|
