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How to ignite your passion

How to ignite your passion

By Peter Bromberg

Do you want to ignite more passion in one or more areas of your life?  The always insightful Kevin Eikenberry offers six passion-igniting suggestions, in his latest post, Unlocking the Passion Paradox.

If you’re in a situation where you’re feeling less than passionate, try these strategies…

1. Look for good
2. Look to serve
3. Look at the big picture
4. Look at your attitude
5. Look in other parts of your life
6. Look at your choices

Eikenberry fleshes this out a bit and I highly recommend reading his short, excellent post.  I just spent a few minutes applying each of these six suggestions to a collaborative project that I’m involved in that has been starting to drain, rather than ignite, my passion, and let me tell you–it worked!

1. Look for good: This project will have a direct and positive affect on hundreds of people.  It will actually make a difference in people’s lives in the short term and the long term. YAY!
2. Look to serve:  This project is not about me, it’s bigger than that.  It’s a great honor and privilege that I was given the opportunity –invited, even– to share my time and energy on this project with some truly talented people.
3. Look at the big picture: Although some things aren’t going in the direction I’d like, as fast as I’d like, the overall impact remains large, and there are still unexplored paths of influence.
4. Look at your attitude: My attitude was getting whiny and victimy.   Yuck!  Now I’m reframing and looking at this as a creative leadership challenge: What are my choices?  What actions can I engage in that will make it more likely rather than less likely that my desired outcome will emerge?
5. Look in other parts of your life: Friends, family, health, food in the fridge, a roof over the head.  Books to read, a guitar to play, and a tennis racquet to swing. Check!
   
6. Look at your choices: Honestly, I jumped right to looking at my choices when I was looking at my attitude.  But it probably wouldn’t hurt to pick up a pen and actually list out some strategic choices and begin narrowing them down to 3-5 actions that I could do and one or two that I will do.

Ready to re-engage!  I’d be interested in hearing from any readers who have suggestions:  What do you do to reignite your passion when the blahs come to town?

Image by Flickr user jasondirks.  Some rights reserved. CC 2.0

December 8, 2009 at 7:53 am Peter Bromberg 5 comments