Passion Can Be Elusive for Entrepreneurs

Bigg success if life on your own terms. Almost by definition, that means living our passions. Spending significant time – at work and play – doing things we love.

As we’ve talked with people about their challenges of living their lives on their own terms, we’ve found that a lot of people don’t love the work they do.

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Why don’t we live our passion?

We think there are a number of reasons for this. We may not know how to find our passion or we may not do what it takes to discover it.

Another reason may be that sometimes we roll with the punches based on the decisions we’ve made before. We take what life gives us instead of creating the life we want. Let’s look at two examples of this:

1. Your goal was to own your own home.
So you got a job that paid well so you could save enough to buy it. It wasn’t necessarily what you loved to do, but it paid the bills and let you accomplish something significant.

2. You wanted to have a family.
So you did. Your job allowed you to support your family and pay for their future needs.

It’s not that we live robotic lives. We’ve made choices which have given us what we want. But many people feel like there’s something more.

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Putting profit over passion

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I relate to this subject all to well. Bigg success is life on your own terms. For years, my term was opportunity. I put profit over passion. I responded to opportunities rather than spending time contemplating my personal passions and preferences and then proactively searching for an opportunity that was congruent with them.

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What would you have done differently if you could do it all over?

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I’ve always been passionate about entrepreneuring – working for myself, owning my own business. But if I could do it all over, the type of businesses I owned would be different.

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So what would that business be?

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Something educational – training, coaching or even consulting. Bigg Success and our related ventures fit me much better than the businesses I did before.

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So why do you think you put opportunity over passion?

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At first, I didn’t know any better. I had bills to pay and I looked for an opportunity to do my own thing while paying those bills. Just like the examples we’ve already talked about.

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Security over passion

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But you could have done that with a consulting gig?

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You’re right. In fact, at one point I planned to do just that. I had just finished my Master’s degree. But then life presented an opportunity – my partners wanted out of a business we owned. So I ended up buying them out. I felt safer with an established business than starting from scratch.

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So you chose the safety of an established business rather than starting your own consulting firm which would have fit more closely with your passions. What made you finally go for the business you really wanted to be in?

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Nourish your discontent

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As the years progressed, I started feeling some discontent. I still loved being in business for myself, but I wasn’t completely happy with the work I was doing. So I started thinking about the work I wanted to do.

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It’s often discontent that is key to thinking about things like this. So what did you come up with?

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Well, I realized very clearly that teaching, training, and coaching were things I really got a kick out of. And I accepted the fact that those things needed to be a part of my work. So I looked at my existing businesses and saw the need for additional training. So I personally built training programs for our people. I was doing more of what I loved and our businesses were more profitable, in part because we had more knowledgeable and more motivated employees.

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Obviously eventually you moved on. Now you’re doing Bigg Success which is completely congruent with what you love.

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If you’re feeling like there has to be more, do a personal assessment. You may find ways to be more engaged with what you’re doing now. It will also help you prepare for what you want to do next.

We’ve come to realize that it’s a process. You don’t wake up one day and have all the answers. You discover your passions over time by constantly learning about yourself. That leads to bigg success!

What are your passions? How did you discover them?

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00572-040710.mp3

(Image by qthomasbower,CC 2.0)