Why You Can’t Find Your Passion (And What To Do Instead)
Are you wondering what your passion is or how to find it? Keen to start your transition, but feeling stuck because you haven’t found your passion yet?
Please don’t worry, there are many reasons why the “find your passion” approach might not work for you and why it’s actually not the best place to start your transition as a career changer or entrepreneur.
Let me share a more pragmatic, alternative approach that you can actually start straight away!
Transcript of Video:
Since starting my transition consultancy for entrepreneurs and career changers back in 2005, I’ve observed a variety of trends in the marketplace in terms of the kind of questions that people are asking me when they first meet me.
Between 2005 and 2010, everybody was asking, “Rikke, what can I get with what I’ve got?” (i.e. what are my transferable skills?). I’ve done this up until now, so what is the best career or the best business for me going forward?”
Around 2012/2013, the conversation started changing and people were asking, “Rikke, how can I live the laptop lifestyle? What is the right location-independent business for me and how can I design and run an online business?”
Whereas now, what everybody’s asking me is, “How do I find my passion?”
Now, here’s the thing with trends. “How do I find my passion?” is a trend just like everything else. But like most trends (hello mini skirts and hipster beards!), the approach works for some and not for others.
Right now if you’re beating yourself up because you don’t know where your passion is or you haven’t found your passion, then please don’t worry. In this video I’ll share an approach that I’ve tested over the last 10 year – It’s a different question to ask that has actually survived all the trends. Stay tuned and I will share with you exactly what the question you can ask yourself to be a lot more practical and pragmatic is.
I also want to be clear upfront that I don’t have a problem with passion per se, but it is not where you start.
Don’t insist on using finding your passion as the place to start when you first start your transition journey, because, frankly, even though it might work for some, for most people it means that you leave a lot of control out of your hands and you almost feel like you’re just going to have to sit here and wait until you somehow find your passion or passion finds you. If you’re like most of my clients, you’re super smart, you’re super impatient, and you just want to get going now. That’s why there are a lot more pragmatic approaches for you when it comes to starting your transition journey.
Here’s the good news about passion. Even if you don’t have it right now, it’s something you can develop over time, but it’s more like the end result rather than the starting point.
Often when I give talks, people come up to me afterwards and say, “Rikke, you’re so passionate. I wish I was like you and was passionate about what I was doing for a living.” But here’s the truth: That wasn’t where I started out.
The reason why I’m so passionate about my business and what I do is because over the last number of years I’ve honed some serious skills so I can get my clients results, and actually it’s not just about me, it’s about helping others. The more skills you develop, the better you get at what you do, the more passionate, for lack of a better word, you actually get. But it’s the end result of what you experience over time rather than the starting point.
I’ve especially observed two risks with insisting on using finding your passion as a starting point:
Number one, a lot of people end up going down this self-development trail and end up navel-gazing forever in terms of, “I’ve got to find my passion.” There’s not necessarily anything wrong with that, but what I’ve just seen is that a lot of people get totally lost in that journey, or they never manage to translate their findings into something commercially viable or into something that makes sense to other people but themselves.
Number two, having worked with a lot of people who spend a long time in careers or businesses they didn’t enjoy, when it’s suggested they find their passion, they’re like, “Oh my God, I wouldn’t know a passion if it stared me in the face. I’ve hated what I’ve done for the last 5, 10, 15 years.” It’s almost like a cold slap in the face if you tell that kind of person that, “Oh, you just need to find your passion,” because they’re so depleted of it that it’s not a helpful approach.
If you have ended up in any of those categories, this approach I’m going to share in a minute is going to be a lot more helpful for you.
Hi, I’m Rikke Hansen from Rikke.me. I help career changers and entrepreneurs in transition overcome overwhelm, nail down their best option, and as a result design their ideal business, whether that’s their first, their second, third-plus business.
Maybe it’s because I’m Scandinavian by birth, but I have a strong sense of fairness and practicality. Or maybe it’s because I spent the last 10 years personally advising over 600 people in transition on a one-to-one basis and thousands more via stages and videos like this. I’ve seen a lot of trends come and go, but what I’ve also seen at the same time is what actually works and what doesn’t work when it comes to starting people on the transition journey.
What I want to share with you here is actually an approach, a question that makes a lot more sense and that you get started with straight away so you don’t have any excuse to procrastinate. Because here’s the thing:
Your business is not just about you.
If you want to make it commercially and you actually want the sense of purpose that comes from helping other people and leave a legacy, then you’ve got to bake practicality into your transition, and that’s exactly what I’ll share with you how you can do, so you can get both commerciality, make money, and actually help people and find meaning.
Let’s get to that question. Here it is. I want you to ask yourself:
What is the problem YOU most want to solve?
What is the problems YOU most want to solve in the world?
That is where you can get started straight away, because you have a unique story. You have a unique perspective. You have a unique upbringing and a unique culture, a unique way of looking at the world. You have skills, you have experiences, you have things that you really have an innate interest in.
As a result of that, look around. What problems need solving?
For some of my clients, the problems they’re solving is the fact that there’s not a lot of sports gear that’s designed specifically for women. They’re all replicas for men.
Another client is dealing with the fact that most workplaces are toxic and unproductive.
Another client is developing really fancy bars and restaurants and hotel concepts for women over 40 who are still trendy because there are not a lot of other places for them to go.
Some of my friends are solving problems along the lines of parents don’t spend enough time with their children, so how do you get them to connect?
How do you use technology to actually deal with the fact that there’s more and more addiction in the world and how do you prevent suicide?
You see, it doesn’t all have to be about saving children in Africa or curing AIDS.
It can be ANY problem that makes sense to you that exists out there in the world and that you uniquely want to solve.
It could also be because somebody’s currently solving that problem badly or people are consistently asking you about that problem, but there is something out there that you can just choose and pick. Remember, you can always change and choose again, but I want you to think about, what is the problem you most want to solve?
For me, the problem I most want to solve is it hurts me so much when I see smart, super bright, big-hearted people who are in jobs and/or businesses they don’t enjoy, but they’re too overwhelmed to even decide or know what else they could do and nailing down what that will be and then designing it and launching it. That’s the problem I’m solving. That’s what gives me so much passion and so much joy over time.
I want you to think about that for a moment.
What is the problem you most want to solve in the world that potentially only YOU can solve YOUR way, and that therefore is going to make sense to your clients, to the world, and that’s going to make sense commercially?
If you want to get started in that transition, start looking at problems as being a good thing because problems are your ticket out of the job you hate. Problems are the ticket out of the business you’ve outgrown.
Problems are your ticket to entrepreneurship, to money, and to meaning.
I really believe that making a dent in the Universe means that you’re solving real-life problems for real people.
I really believe that the key to successful entrepreneurship, to purpose, and to passion is to help other people solve the problems they want to pay to have solved, as well as a bigger purpose around using the money you make to invest in the bigger problems to solve, whether that be world hunger or peace or anything like that.
Right now, I want to you to think about, what’s the problem you most want to solve? Do a short list. Cut it down. That’s really how this works.
If you want to make a dent in the Universe, you’ve got to find a real problem to solve. You do not make a dent in the universe by going off on some tangent thinking about only what you want or only what your passion is. You’ve got to bring it right back.
The world is too crazy. The world needs you. If you live at this moment in time,you owe it to the world to solve a real problem.
Here’s the deal. As long as you make sure it’s a problem that people want to pay to have solved, it’s commercially viable.
How good is that?
Now over to you, because right now, with this approach, there’s no procrastination. You don’t have to wait around to find your passion or to somehow your passion finds you. With this approach, “What problem do you most want to solve?” you can get started straight away.
Go out there and find a problem to solve.
I want you to take action straight away.
Action: Comment below this video:
What is the problem YOU most want to solve in the world?
Let me know.
Subscribe for more videos, and I’ll see you in the next video.
Now go out there and solve some real-world problems, and get your transition off to a flying start at the same time. Thank you.