1. We have oversold Passion. Since I can remember, we have been kindly assured that one of the most important accomplishments in life is to be able to discover our passion. The idea generally follows to say that once we have achieved this, all else will come as an effect of this discovery. In other words, finding our passion generally assumes it will bring the energy, clarity, understanding, and the direction that we will need to be personally successful and of benefit to the people around us.
2. Passion changes. We don’t need to venture too much into modern neuroscience to bump into the very interesting idea that our sense of self (in other words, who we experience to be) is more of a shifting and transitional phenomenon rather than a solid and grounded one. In other words, we now know that our sense of self, and hence our passion can change throughout the span of our lives, or the span of a year, or even a month, sometimes slightly and sometimes substantially. So our passion tends to be much less reliable that we would hope.
3. Purpose as reason for our existence. Purpose can be defined as the reason for which something is done, created, or for which something exists. Purpose is much more accessible, easy to find, reliable and consistent than passion; especially if we define it in a way that it becomes essential and grounded. Purpose is actually one of the very few things that can survive our passion waning, changing or disappearing.
4. Purpose has a best friend: Focus. Ask yourself what are you here for? What is the only thing that you would continue to do even if you were to loose everything you had (career, work, family, friends, money, etc.). What would you still seek, look for, or want to find a way to do in this world? Who would you still be? This is the kind of focus that would actually show us what is reliable within.
5. Purpose is always accessible. In contrast with passion, the beauty of focused purpose is that it is always available. We can always jump into our inner world and seek for this grounding. We just need to stop for a moment and ask ourselves: What am I here for? What would I continue to do even if I were to loose everything? What is the most important thing I have learned to be worthwhile for me to do in this world?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Pedro Cortina is CEO & Managing Partner at the Innerland Institute www.innerland.com. He is an author, speaker, counselor, coach, facilitator, trainer, transformation specialist and leadership consultant. He is the author of Curflexion: Living the Infinite Space of Being, a guide for moving away from our underlying human experience of separation and unfulfillment. Curflexion is sold through amazon.com