About The Passion Plan
Whether they climb mountains, run multi-national corporations, or feed the homeless, successful and satisfied people share one trait--a powerful sense of passion for what they do.
Passion has the power to uplift and inspire. It fills us with energy and excitement, and enables us to accomplish things we never thought possible. In this book, Richard Chang presents a simple, practical plan that you can follow to create the life you long for and achieve success on your own terms.
Following the Passion Plan Model(TM), you'll learn how to listen to your heart, identify your passion and decide where you want it to take you. You'll discover how to use your passion to direct your actions and improve your performance, share your excitement with others, and persist in the face of obstacles. The book's questionnaires and self-assessment tools will help you measure your progress, and practical suggestions will guide you along the way.
Because passion is personal, the Passion Plan is designed to be followed at your own pace and in your own manner. While individual results will differ, the effect will be the same--you'll discover "Profit with a capital P"--where profit is measured in personal enrichment and satisfaction, not in dollars.
What's Your Passion?
How to Discover, Develop, and Live It
Regardless of your circumstances, you probably want more. You might not be able to put a finger on it, but you still sense that you are not accomplishing all you can and that fulfillment is eluding you. Are you failing to reach your full potential as a professional or a parent? Have you abandoned a dream that part of you aches to realize? Do you yearn to have a more lasting impact on the world? Such feelings might not be burning desires but, rather, subtle longings that consistently remind you that something else awaits you if only you'll work for it.
Profit with a Capital P
What you hope for, secretly or openly, is what I call "Profit with a capital P." Success, with its traditional connotations of a good salary, a nice home, and a country club membership, is no longer a sufficient term to represent the scope and complexity of your desires. As you enter a new century and a new millennium, you have come to expect more. You want to profit not only financially, but also in terms of your emotional, spiritual, physical, interpersonal, and professional experiences.
You don't just want a big paycheck; you want to feel good about how you earn it. You want to take pride in your work, be excited about it, and know that you are growing through it. You don't just want to have a few children and send them to college, you want to spend significant time with them, give them every opportunity to discover their talents, and teach them that they, too, are entitled to more. You don't just want to put in time at work only to collect a pension at age 65. You want to work for yourself, retire on your own terms (if at all), and find new ways to heighten your experience aside from your professional life. In short, you want to create and define your own success. You want to build your own Profit.
Passion Is the Answer
In counseling individuals and consulting with organizations for over twenty-five years, I have learned that those who overcome the deterrents to fulfillment derive their energy and initiative from a single source: passion. Not the romantic variety--although many would argue it certainly cannot hurt--but the kind that fills them with energy and excitement, gets them up in the morning, and keeps them awake at night. When they experience it, they lose track of time and become absorbed in the task at hand. This passion creates personal intensity and uplifts and inspires them. It heightens their performance and enables them to achieve things they may never have dreamed possible. Most importantly, this passion holds the key to their happiness and to realizing their Profit.
As Benjamin Disraeli said over a century ago, people achieve greatness (and I contend happiness) when they act from their heart and their passion. Those who learn to recognize the promptings of their heart, and then find the courage to follow them, are the ones who win races, rule nations, and create masterpieces. They also, regardless of their circumstances, live with a sense of contentment--a knowledge that they are who they want to be.
I call these people "passioneers." Passioneers are not perfect; on the contrary, they are quite human. They are subject to frustration in the face of bureaucracy, sorrow in the face of tragedy, and fear in the face of danger. They do not, however, live with regret. They follow their hearts and are not afraid to take chances.
Becoming a Passioneer
You can decide right here, right now, that you are going to let passion into your life. You are every bit as capable of doing so as is a president, an Olympian, or a Nobel Prize winner. Passion is not a privilege of the fortunate few; it is a right and a power you possess.
You can get in touch with the passion that defines you and have an amazing life. You can show the world all you are capable of--all that deep down you know you can be. And, most importantly, you can be happy. You can live every day with zest and vigor. You can love your life.
To help you do this, I have created the Passion Plan, a step-by-step guide to reorienting your life around passion. The plan begins with passion and leads to Profit. Along its path are seven steps you must take to ensure that your passion leads to your desired outcomes. Each step is equally important in building a passion-filled life and in getting the results you seek.
Feeling, Thinking, Acting
Feeling--The first two steps in the plan--starting from the heart and discovering your passion--require you to get in touch with your heart and identify your dreams and passions. This is the key to passioneering: feeling first. Your heart will reveal what really matters to you and what brings you happiness. Start from any other source and you set yourself up for frustration and regret. Fulfillment comes only when the results you seek and the activities you embrace are in accordance with the person you are. You cannot look to reason or judgment for insights into your soul. Who you are is what's in your heart.
Thinking--After you come to terms with your heart, it is time for reasoning and rationalizing. The third and fourth steps--clarifying your purpose and defining your actions--require you to think. Because the world can dissuade you from pursuing your passion, you must pursue it with forethought and care. The mind provides you with a formidable defense against threats to passion. Your intellect can help you define a purpose and set a strategy for following your heart. It can help you determine the most effective ways to integrate passion into your life and ensure that it stays there.
Acting--Once you have felt and thought, it is time to act. Equipped with both your passion and your plan, you are ready to go for the fifth, sixth, and seventh steps--performing your passion, spreading your excitement, and staying the course. You will begin to make changes in your life. As you do, you will continue to use both your heart and your head to make decisions; your task is to understand both intimately so that your choices further you on your road to Profit. How you act will determine whether you remain in an active state of pursuit or slip back into a passive state of wishing or worrying.
If you remain true to your passion and follow these seven steps, you will find the results you seek. And you will also reap rewards you never anticipated because passion can take you to another level of living. It can open worlds and expand horizons. It can bring new awareness and heightened perceptions. It can empower and improve. Your idea of Profit may change as you begin to fulfill your potential. The Profit you find might actually be new passions or new experiences that lead you in completely different directions. Whatever its nature, the Profit you find will further fuel your passion and propel you onward to even greater achievement and happiness.
Are You Ready to Discover,
Develop, and Live Your Passion?
Check the statements below that are true for you. Be completely honest. If an item causes a strong reaction because you don't want it to be true, it's more than likely true for you.
1. ____I feel less than completely satisfied with my life.
2. ____I do not feel that I am doing my best or achieving the most I can.
3. ____I do not feel excited about my day-to-day activities.
4. ____I often feel stuck or unable to change my current situation.
5. ____I am not sure what I want to do with my life.
6. ____I don't remember or know what really excites me.
7. ____I wish I had more time to do the things that make me happy.
8. ____I often feel reluctant or uninspired when going about my daily routines.
9. ____I would like to pursue new or unexplored interests.
10. ____I am apathetic or uncertain about my future.
Scoring
Give yourself one point for each statement you marked true. Then read on to learn where you stand.
0-1 Congratulations! You are living your passion.
2-4 You are missing some opportunities to incorporate more passion into your life. Begin to identify significant passions that you are not experiencing and incorporate them into your life in big or small ways.
5-7 You are dissatisfied with the way things are going in your life. Develop specific actions for identifying and incorporating passion into your life.
8-10 You are suffering from severe passion deficit. Take immediate steps to identify your passion and solicit the support of your family and friends to help you incorporate it into your life now.
What's Holding You Back?
Seven Deterrents to Discovering, Developing, and Living Your Passion
When you make decisions based on your heart's desires, and not on society's prescriptions, you open the floodgates to a source of energy, commitment, and inspiration. If you want to discover your passion, move beyond the paralysis that grips you and prevents you from heeding your heart. A wide range of emotions can lock you into a state of inaction. To break their grip, first acknowledge and confront them.
The Deterrents to Passion
Fear--There is no greater impediment to your personal progress than fear, with the greatest fear being the unknown. Passion is a mystery; often you do not know where it will lead you. You may wonder what life would be like if you followed your heart and changed careers or took on new challenges, then fear creeps in and you create elaborate scenarios of failure. If you were considering taking up ballroom dancing for fun, which is relatively risk-free, under the influence of fear you might wonder, "What if I don't like the instructor? What if my partner has two left feet? What if I make an absolute fool of myself?"
Self-doubt--An extension of fear, self-doubt focuses on your personal inadequacies. It makes you question your abilities and potential. Let's assume you have a passion for learning and are considering applying for graduate school. If you are battling self-doubt, you might stare at the application for weeks before finally tossing it out, thus nipping your passion in the bud. Self-doubt leads you to imagine yourself becoming a failure rather than a success, miserable rather than happy. Succumb to it and you are powerless to embrace your passion.
Paralysis--When confused or uncertain, you have a tendency to freeze up and prevent yourself from making a change. Paralysis of the heart afflicts you at times when you need your passion most--when you need the boost of adrenaline and self-confidence it can inspire. I have a colleague who was deeply unhappy in his job and longed to find a new one, but for some reason could not bring himself to look for one. He knew he wanted and needed it, but nothing in his life inspired him or empowered him to take this step. Whatever passion he possessed was trapped in the grip of emotional paralysis.
Numbness--You may become so accustomed to the demands and stresses of life that you move beyond paralysis into numbness. You no longer know what brings you pleasure or pain; all experiences simply blur together in a continuum of emotional disconnectedness. You might be miserable at work, but unable to identify your job as the source of your unhappiness. Perhaps you've felt apathetic for so long that you assume it is the way things are supposed to be. You are not acutely aware that you are unhappy, but you also are not aware that you are missing the joy that accompanies passion.
Limited scope--In this age of special interests, you may tend to define yourself by category: male or female; black, white, or brown; white-collar or blue-collar; twentysomething or baby boomer. This may help you identify with others in similar circumstances, but it limits the scope of what you've come to expect or hope for. When you label yourself in this fashion, you accept a gamut of characterizations that have nothing to do with who you really are or what is in your heart.
Procrastination--How many times have you heard, "I'm going to quit my job as soon as I save enough money" or "I'm going to take up that hobby again as soon as I have more time"? Not surprisingly, these people procrastinate, never finding enough money or enough time to make a change.
Caution--Even if you do make changes often, you may do so in ways so controlled and calculated that you leave little if any room for passion to enter. You may not want to test the waters of the unknown or push the limits of your abilities to discover or develop your passion. You may never know failure, but you may also never know the success that comes with unleashing your passion.
Don't Ask Why, Ask Why Not
You are not trapped unless you choose to be. If you are confronted with challenges or tests of mettle, and you back down and deny your self-knowledge, you make it easy for all the forces that sap and kill passion to enter. Instead of asking yourself why (Why should I take a risk? Why would I be any better than anyone else? Why should I try?), ask why not. With your passion in play, you become super-charged, super-able. You can take risks because it is the only way to reap real rewards. You will be better because you care. You will try because if you don't, you will always regret your choice.
No matter how trapped you feel, passion can get you out. It can change your life. When you let passion in, the barriers to happiness and excellence seem smaller, and you feel more motivated and empowered to break them down. You become excited. You have the energy to accomplish more and the courage to doubt yourself less. You make choices that build up your spirit rather than tear it down. You become uplifted and invigorated.
Begin Today
If you agree that passion is lacking in your life, and you desire to bring it back, live from the heart. As you consider your life--where you are now and where you want to go--give priority to the promptings of your heart. Trust it. Do not disparage or discredit your feelings. Accept them and then move forward with them. This does not mean you should follow them blindly or ignorantly; simply that you should give credence to them and realize that they are an integral part of you.
Once you acknowledge your passion, shape it. As you incorporate it into your existence, your life will become an accurate reflection of your hopes, desires, sensitivities, and sensibilities. Most importantly, you will self-actualize. You will become the person you want to be--the person you know you can be.
What's Holding You Back?
1. ____ I dwell on problems that might occur if or when I pursue my passion.
2. ____ I question my ability to succeed at my passion.
3. ____ I feel unable to make the changes necessary to pursue my passion.
4. ____ I really don't care whether or not I pursue my passion.
5. ____ I limit my expectations of success based on what others like me have achieved in pursuing a similar passion.
6. ____ I procrastinate in making the changes needed to pursue my passion.
7. ____ The changes needed to pursue my passion require more effort than I have to give.
8. ____ Making the necessary changes to pursue my passion may be too risky for me.
9. ____ Others could easily convince me to abandon my passion.
10. ____ I worry that others will question my judgment about pursing my passion.
Scoring
Give yourself one point for each statement you marked true. Then read on to learn where you stand.
0-1 Congratulations! You are living your passion.
2-4 You have opportunities to do more with your passion. Be willing to pursue it and become the person you really want to be.
5-7 Break down the barriers and let more passion into your life. Develop specific actions for identifying and incorporating passion into your life on a regular basis.
8-10 You are suffering from severe passion deficit. Take immediate steps to identify your most important passion and solicit the support of your family and friends to help you incorporate this passion into your life.
How to Discover Your Passion
If I were to ask you what your passion is, could you name it? If you are like many people I talk to, you would answer, "I'm not sure." So many of us are so busy juggling our day-to-day responsibilities that we have become strangers to our passion. We may get small glimpses, little moments of enjoyment and inspiration, but rarely do we benefit from continual or prolonged periods of passion. Our lives simply do not reflect what's in our hearts.
So What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?
A friend of mine was having a discussion with her three-year-old son about things like action figures and preschool friends, when suddenly the topic changed. He asked, "Mommy, what do you want to be when you grow up?"
She had not considered this question in many years, but it was every bit as relevant now as it was when she was a child. Even though she was a successful attorney, she knew she had not become what she truly wanted to be. She answered, "I don't know, sweetie. What do you want to be?"
"I want to be a policeman," he replied. "You could be an astronaut. Abby wants to be an astronaut. You could be one with her." Touched, she realized that although it was a little late for her to join the space program, she could be many other things. Not just in a career, but in life. She found herself wondering what really excited her about life. If she could be anything, if there were no limitations or obstacles, what would she be? A simple question from her son inspired her to reflect more intently than any professional seminar or counseling session ever had.
Few people could answer this question any differently than my friend did. Even if they are proud of what they have accomplished--even if they enjoy what they do--they cannot say that they truly have become who they wanted to be. Given the opportunity, they might make some changes; they know they can do more, be better, or be happier. But they don't know how. To begin to build the lives they want, they need to embrace their passion. And to do that, they must first discover it.
Four Ways to Discover Your Passion
Discovery by epiphany--This occurs when you have one pivotal, life-changing experience that creates a sudden and intense awareness of an underlying passion. The experience is unexpected, and its effect is powerful. In a single, clear moment, the mystery surrounding the heart is revealed, and you are left with a distinct impression of who you must be. This moment of discovery does not necessarily result from a major event. It can come while on a quiet walk, reading a book, or performing daily chores. Whatever its context, it is an unmistakable wake-up call from your heart.
Discovery through change--Major life changes, such as birth or death,marriage or divorce, losing a job or taking a new one, and illness or recovery, can alter your view on life and cause you to examine the way you live it. As you react, you may learn things about yourself you never knew. This includes discovering your passion. Those living with disease or injury might discover a passion for helping others to overcome the same challenges. New parents might learn they are passionate about teaching or nurturing others.
Discovery through intuition--Discovering your passion is a product of intuition. You must sense your passion in order to identify it. You have intuition, but may not recognize its cues. Some of you might be born with such strong intuition that, from a very early age, you know your passion and are confident in it. With fearlessness and conviction you embrace it fully and follow the course it dictates. Something about your nature allows your passion to flow unabated. Once it is unleashed, it is so powerful that you cannot ignore it.
Discovery through experience--Most of you uncover your passion gradually as a result of day-to-day experiences. You get glimpses of it--courtesy of your intuition--but may not understand its significance or heed its influence. The messages are there, and they may be from your heart, but they are subtle. Unless you pay attention to them, you are likely to dispel them. They are neither earth shattering or life changing. The challenge is learning to listen to and interpret the signals of your heart and translate them into action.
Steps to Discovery
Take a step back--In order to listen to your heart, shut out the day-to-day noise, stress, and confusion, and seek perspective on your life. This may require only a quiet walk in the woods or a night in front of the fire; however, if you feel you cannot escape so easily, you may need to retreat completely. This could mean flying halfway around the globe or loading a tent into the back of the car and spending a few days in the mountains. Sit down, breathe deeply, and try to relax. Then answer these questions: Where am I today? Where do I want to be tomorrow? What do I want to do with my life?
Look to the past, present, and future for clues to your passion--Search for clues to uncover your passion. Remember your childhood and any activities that excited or intrigued you. You may have abandoned them only because you thought it was practical, not because you lost your passion for them. Then examine the present. Consider the things you look forward to from day to day--the aspects of your work you enjoy or the activities or thoughts in your life you really love. Finally, look to the future. Make a list of the things you dream of, and take time to think about what they mean to you now. Once you have done this, look for connections between the ideas that have emerged.
Step back in--Once you return from your step back--whether it took you to another country or just another room--uncover your passion as you go about your normal routine. Examine your surroundings--the things you fill your home with, the ways you fill your time, the people you like--for insights into yourself. Schedule time with friends, family members, and colleagues to discuss you, and just you. Ask them to name your strengths and weaknesses, or your talents and abilities as they see them. Do this not because they know you better than you know yourself, but because they see your passion from another perspective.
Begin to experiment--If you still cannot identify your passion, it is time to act. Seek out new experiences, people, and activities. Take a class at a local college, apply for a part-time job, join a neighborhood athletic team, help a friend with work, attend lectures and meetings, or try a new hobby. Look for the fresh in the stale, the new in the old. If you think a bolder move is necessary, step out of your comfort zone and take some risks. If you usually stand on the sidelines as an observer, jump in as a participant. The point is to break down the barriers that might be preventing you from finding the things you enjoy.
Try taste tests--If you do not feel quite so daring, there are safer ways to experiment with passion: taste tests. Begin to let passion into your life on your own terms. Find ways to test your suspicions. Discovery will be more gradual than if you make more drastic changes, but you should begin to sense the things that move you.
Take perspective breaks--As you engage in the process of discovery, continue to take perspective breaks. Do things that offer you varying views of your life. Reading can expose you to new ideas and new frames of reference. Traveling requires you to ponder what is meaningful at home and in the new places you see. Watching plays and movies, attending festivals and celebrations, or taking solitary walks or extended bike rides cause you to see the world and your life in new ways.
The Passion Litmus Test
How to Discover Your Passion
1. ____ I lose track of time when I'm engaged in this activity.
2. ____ I perform beyond my normal capabilities when I'm engaged in this activity.
3. ____ My energy level is higher when I'm engaged in this activity.
4. ____ I get excited when I think of this activity.
5. ____ I dream about this activity.
6. ____ My enthusiasm for this activity is consistent over time.
7. ____ I feel more confident or empowered when I'm engaged in this activity.
8. ____ Others notice me based on my involvement or performance in this activity.
9. ____ Others rally around me or want to be involved with me in this activity.
10. ____ I feel energized after engaging in this activity.
Scoring
Give yourself one point for each statement you marked true. Then read on to learn where you stand.
0-2 This activity is not a passion.
3-5 This activity is an interest.
6-8 This activity is a potential passion and should be re-evaluated after further investigation.
9-10 This activity is definitely a passion. You should take further action to determine how to incorporate it into your life on a regular basis.
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