Don't Know What You're Passionate About? Start Here...

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Here’s the unfortunate truth: Most women have no idea what they’re passionate about.

We have no clue what makes us feel alive or gives us a sense of purpose—and we don’t know how to figure it out.

If that’s you, don’t worry. You’re not alone and there is a way forward.

Four years ago, I fell apart.

After years of keeping my head down to do what needed to be done for my family, and months of feeling like I was starting to crack, I woke up one January morning and started to cry. I didn’t know exactly why, I just felt like my life was way too much and at the same time, not nearly enough. I cried for 12 hours straight… physically unable to stop the tears.

In an attempt to help, my husband suggested I take some time for myself and do something I wanted to do. Problem was, I had no idea what that was. My precious 4 year old suggested I go grocery shopping because, in her mind, that’s what I did with my free time. Unfortunately, she wasn’t too far off—which made me cry harder.

This was not what I wanted for my daughters. Or myself. Or my husband. Or the world.

We all deserved a Me that was fully alive instead of a shell-of-a-human who did tasks.

The next couple of years saw a lot of changes. I sent myself to therapy, spent hours following my curiosity, moved my family to Seattle so I could get a master’s degree, restructured our marriage to allow space and time for both of our interests, and honed my passions. My children no longer believe grocery shopping is my hobby.

But don’t be fooled by that tidy summation—the process was messy, chaotic, non-linear, and stressful. And it taught me so much.

My biggest takeaway about how to “find” your passion from both my research and my experience was this:

All passions start as interests… they develop into passions through persistent curiosity and hard work.

Despite how passionate people tend to make it sound, no one is born passionate about something. Your friend who’s a passionate musician might’ve been born interested in music, but she became passionate about it by spending more time pursuing it than the rest of us cared to.

“If passion is a tower of flame, then curiosity is a modest spark.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

In other words, we don’t find our passion all-of-a-sudden, out-of-nowhere. We become passionate about something by following our interests past the point where most people give up.

That’s why trying to find your passion before you’re actually passionate about something doesn’t work… because passions don’t look like passions at first. They look like interests.

Looking for that sense of confidence, and clarity of purpose we see in passionate people when you’re still at the beginning of your journey would be like trying to find your soulmate by running around in a wedding dress looking for a guy in a tux. That’s just not how it works.

You gotta start at the beginning:

Drum up an interest. Stalk it on Facebook. Go on a couple dates with it. Really consider how you feel about it. Introduce it to your friends and family and see what they think. If it’s not the right fit? Dump it.

But if you like it... Spend some more time with it. Get serious with it. Invest in your relationship with it. See where it goes.

A great thing about this truth is that interests are way easier to identify than passions, partially because as Elizabeth Gilbert explains, interests have “much lower emotional stakes” than passions. That is, while passions feel like a really big deal, interests are pretty non-committal—they come and go, they wax and wane, and no one expects you to change the world with them. No big deal.

So, if you don’t know what your passion is yet, that’s ok! Just get curious and drum up some interests…even if they feel random or disconnected.

Here are some questions to get you started: (For far more in-depth help in this process, please download our workbook)

Jot down the first things that come into your head when you read the questions below, without filtering any of your thoughts…

“A calling... starts as an inkling (‘I’d like to try that’) then swells into a mandate that you just can’t shake.”

— Dr. Shelley Prevost

What was the last book you heard about that piqued your interest?

What do you want to learn more about?

What is something you often wish you could do if you only had more time?

When was the last time you thought “I’d love to try that someday”?

Who and what do you want people to know you as or say about you?

When was the last time you felt truly alive… like you were doing exactly what you were meant to be doing?

We all have to start somewhere. So start here.

If you’re still coming up empty, ask a friend what they think you’re interested in or passionate about—friends often have a clearer view of these things than we do because they aren’t all caught up and confused by what’s happening inside our head.

Once you’ve got an interest, do some research on it. Learn everything you can about it. Meet with people who are already involved in it. Just keep moving toward it.

Keep in mind that your first “inkling” might not turn into your passion. Most of us test out a variety of different interests before we find one that sticks and turns into something more.

“Discovering (or perhaps more accurately, ‘developing’) your passion” is not a neat and tidy process. It’s messy and ongoing and most people feel lost at some point.

My one truly concrete insight into this process is that it’s easier to steer a moving ship. You’re never going to figure it out by sitting in the harbor with your anchor down, just thinking about it.

Even if you don’t have clear direction, just start moving toward whatever feels meaningful and important to you. You can always turn around! Making a U-Turn is not the worst thing you could do… never leaving the harbor is the worst thing you could do.

So start now. What are a few of your interests? Jot them down in pencil (so it feels less permanent) and spend 10-20 minutes today googling them, even if it’s on your phone waiting to pick up your kid from school.

Follow your curiosity and see where it takes you.

Let me know how it goes!

For more in-depth and detailed guidance on how to develop your passions, download our workbook.