Reflecting on the many articles I’ve published to FourthEye, I realized that though I’ve spent a decent amount of time talking about the importance of passion and managing it to achieve success and fulfillment, I’ve spent relatively little time addressing how we identify our passion. While everybody and their grandmother at some point or another has probably said “follow your passion” the pool of wisdom on finding passion is comparatively small in my experience. While I’m far from the first to touch on this side of the conversation, I think unpacking a few key things that I find helpful when trying to zero in on my passions may prove useful for the sorts of misfits (you know I love you) that read my blog. That said, let’s get into a number of practical steps that I use personally to increase fulfillment and effortlessness in my life as well as decrease struggle and frustration.
1.) Identify things that you do without thinking about it
Given that I’ve spoken about the utility and importance of mindfulness and self-honesty a great deal elsewhere on the blog, I’ll opt to merely say check those boxes before continuing forth. Assuming that we’re in the right headspace and are ready to honestly, and with little judgment, analyze where we spend our resources, performing the very basic exercise of simply jotting down, or at least bringing to the front of the mind, where our free time actually goes can prove invaluable in identifying passions. The truth is, I think that being afraid to admit that we really like, makeup, or fashion, or video games, or sex, or alcohol can rob us of a great deal of happiness and fulfillment, because we are hiding from ourselves in many ways. Before we decide what we really want to be doing more, we should first figure out what we do in all the in between periods. None of this is to say we should reinforce unhealthy habits, but if we really feel alive doing something bad for us, we have to admit that to ourselves first and own it in some way, even if very small. The negativity I’d say comes from what we think others may think about us, which as I’ve spoken about elsewhere is a recipe for anxiety and unhappiness. Another big thing to look at is price insensitivity. What things do we tend to spend a lot of money on, or what things might we happily spend several times more on if we could? Questions like these are great ways to identify things that we value, or that add value to our lives in some way, or perhaps even where we spend too much money or resources.
2.) Ask “Do I like the idea, process and the destination regarding some endeavor?” (the PID rule)
This step involves a question that I came up with for myself as a way of ranking my various interests or passions. Whenever I have something that checks all three of these boxes I prioritize it, and figure out how it might fit in to my career. We don’t necessarily have to neglect activities that check fewer boxes, but this idea helps put things into perspective. Using the popular “rocks in a jar” illustration, the biggest rocks that go in first satisfy all three of these requirements while smaller rocks fulfill fewer. I find this model to be not only super simple and easy to remember, but also a great way to filter out the differences between distractions, hobbies, and big ticket career items.
3.) Quintuple down on what works
One mnemonic that I’ve found great utility in is ELF, or “easy” “lucrative” and “fun” which I learned from Joe Polish. To make it a little less vain seeming I add an ‘M’ which stands for “meaning” making it something like MELF. However the acronym is really besides the point, the important thing is identifying what we love doing, figuring out how to find our flow state, and then going one hundred percent in. One phrase I love is something to the effect of “you can’t be 80% good and 20% bad and expect 100% results” which comes from a late indirect mentor Charles Poliquin. While the saying certainly has many applications I think of it as a reminder that we can’t half ass our goals or endeavors and expect to succeed. Often, I think that we somewhat unconsciously decide something can’t be our passion or worthy of pursuit if we can’t immediately register how to make money with it. While the real world and free market economies are a blunt reminder that all goals and investments have to be reigned in to output, particularly financial at some point or another, I view this as more of a plus than a minus. The fact that there are endless ways to do things poorly but only a few to get things right, relatively speaking, means that we have to earn our success, and work smart, but also that the strategies that create success are usually very stable. If getting two or three things seriously right generates most of the outputs that we want, that certainly makes it much easier to focus.
4.) Don’t try to move a mountain every work or practice session
Although the most impassioned among us have probably felt like we could work 16 hours every day because our work is so energizing, being overcome with worry about how tired you will feel after working is a great way to create negative associations with our passion. In other words, I think the reason some people stop liking what they do when it becomes a job, is because they don’t set clear enough boundaries around productivity. Don’t set out to work till burnout, instead try to complete specific tasks or achievements that will move the needle meaningfully and leave us feeling satisfied. In a weird sort of way, the goal is to do something meaningful enough within a reasonable span of time so that we feel full, rather than feeling a void to be filled with busyness.
5.) Design a lifestyle around our passion(s)
Probably the most important step once we establish what exactly our passion is or what satisfies the PID rule, is to put passion at the center of the room. I’ve spoken about making before one manages previously, so I’ll not belabor that point, but planning out how we want to engage with our career or passion is important. Assuming we want our passion to be our career, “How many hours do we want to work?”, “Where do we want to live?”, “Do we want to work from home or around people?”, “How much money do we think we need/want for various lifestyles?” Questions like these are super important to help define what exactly we are striving for. In a straightforward sense if we decide $3000 per month doing what we love is the target number, that’s quantitative information. That is a service or product provided to a certain number of clients or customers at some price point, with x pay model, x type of engagement and so on. If we know what we want we can aim our selves towards specific goals much more easily. Measurement and landmark placement is pretty difficult if we haven’t established anything to track.
I’m sure I’ll think of more to add a month after this post like always, but for the moment that is the gist of how I personally identify and think about passions. I hope this was useful to you in some way, and as always I appreciate your support.
Happy hunting,
Orion Aeneas Webster,
FourthEye author
FourthEye 
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