Passion Is Power

What’s your real passion? What’s that thing that you could do all day long, without even thinking of being tired, with deep focus and endless joy? Finding your true passion is one of the most important breakthroughs you can hit in your life.

Choosing A Personal Path

It surely was quite a breakthrough in my life, that I know for sure. 10 years ago I started my own business, as an independent online publisher. Took me several years to understand that my real passion was only partially congruent with my business, and several other years to solve this situation.

I didn’t know from the beginning that I was on a slightly wrong path. Having an online business is a great play. And I mean it, it’s something that you should really play with. But it wasn’t my true passion. Being an online entrepreneur was connecting with my true passion on several points, but it wasn’t a perfect match. The rest was a really consuming activity. I was confused. Some things I had to do while having an online business were nourishing me, some things were draining me out. I just wasn’t complete.

Being an independent online publisher had a lot of nice things attached. I was my own boss (I still like this, by the way), I was playing on a revolutionary field, I was facing challenges all the time. I even learned programming and that was a thing that proved useful to me for years. But it wasn’t enough. Although I enjoyed my new status a lot, something was missing from the puzzle.

Most of the people I met during that time admired me. Some of them for the courage of being an entrepreneur, some of them for the quite visible success I had in my niche. But I never felt very comfortable in that position.

Passion Is Power

Most of the time you go for the things you admire. There’s an inner mimic approach in our human nature that makes for a constant, magnetic attraction towards the things or the persons we admire. We tend to be like them. We chose role models and spend our life trying to be like them. Most of the people are living by imitation.

Being an online entrepreneur was surely something I admired a lot at that time. Unconsciously, I assumed that if I would become an online entrepreneur I would be happy and fulfilled, I will live my life with joy and happiness. And, partially, I did. But only partially.

And after a few years I realized: your true passion is what empowers you the most, not what you admire the most. It wasn’t an epiphany, but rather a gradual process that took several years. It was a subtle, but extremely important perspective shift.

As an online entrepreneur I did a lot of things: programming, managing, selling, lobbying. But only some of those things were really important to me. I liked to code, to write website applications, to put my ideas on servers, as I used to say. I wasn’t very much into managing or into selling. I also did some lobbying when I had to, but it wasn’t at the same level with programming.

I felt powerful whenever I created something. Whenever something valuable emerged as a direct result of my efforts I had an unspeakable feeling of  happiness, and, yes, power. I really felt powerful when I launched each and every of my websites.

And I finally realized what was my passion: to create, share and enjoy value for me and for anybody who will need that. That is what I’m doing right now with this blog: with each post I feel like I’ve created something. Each time I hit “publish” I’m happy. And powerful.

Years after I started my business, and several months after I sold it, I put my passion into a personal mission statement. I read this statement each day and it still sounds fresh and natural to me. I’m not bored, nor filled up with. It’s my passion.

Admiring With Caution

As opposed to passion, comes admiration. These are completely different things, yet so easy to mistake for somebody who’s trying to find his own personal path. This confusion was one of the biggest lessons I had to learn so far. Took me a while, but I learned it well. And it is such a simple and easy to understand lesson: don’t go with what you admire, go with your gut. Don’t imitate, be yourself. Don’t walk on somebody else’s footsteps, chose your personal path.

It’s so easy to mistake your admiration as being your passion. But in fact, what you admire the most is your highest distraction. The thing you are doing with the highest commitment is your real passion. The thing that makes you powerful and independent. The thing that makes you smile and be happy. The thing that you could do for hours, days, month, years. And still not feeling tired.

Admiration is taking your energy from you and send it to your object of admiration, being it a role model, a social status or a specific object you want. Becoming “like” somebody else is usually the end of your true self. If you are “like” somebody else you can’t be “like” yourself anymore.

I tend to be more cautions with my admiration impulses these days. I do admire a lot of people and I acknowledge the influence they had on my life until a certain point. But I use admiration mostly as a trigger for inner assessment. Do I really want to be like that person? Do I really share all of the values involved? Do I really know how is it to be in his shoes?

Find Your Passion

Your passion is your power. It’s the hidden link between you and the endless ocean of opportunities on which you are sailing. You don’t need power to find your passion, because your passion IS your power. All you need is focus and honesty.

Focus on what is making you powerful. And be honest about it. That’s all.

If staring at walls makes you powerful, do it. If meditating is making you powerful, do it. If talking with other people makes you powerful, do it. If understanding other people dreams is making you powerful, do it.

Whatever works for you.




18 thoughts on “Passion Is Power”

  1. Pingback: Passion Paradox — This Old Brain
  2. Pingback: 100 Ways To Ruin Your Life
  3. I agree with this post, Your passion can break your human limitations. A common theme that many success speakers teach is that you have to work your passion and profit from it to be successful. I can definitely agree that you have to love what you do to really be satisfied with your life. The word passion always scared me a little though, because there are a lot of things that I enjoy a lot, and I don’t feel like it’s anything I could give up everything else for though. for more details of this please visit the main site, http://www.thesuccessfulgeek.com
    or the direct site,
    http://thesuccessfulgeek.com/post/finding-your-passion/

    Reply
  4. Pingback: bizsugar.com
  5. Passion is certainly power. Many talk about using self discipline to push them through but I prefer using passion as my primary approach to getting things done. It’s the power to push me to things I love. Great post! 🙂

    Celes | EmbraceLiving.Net’s last blog post..Writing A Letter To Your Future Self

    Reply
  6. @nutuba I was on a very similar track: last year I got ill and during the illness I realized I really have to quit the way I was. It was a violent illness and the message was extremely clear. There is a strong mind body connection and I think most of the time illness is just a way of sending / receiving signals of being on a wrong path. Once you change course, the illness magically disappear…

    @Angela Great point about the Great Path! Thanks for being here 🙂

    Reply
  7. Wonderful encouragement as usual, thank you Dragos. If we can each find our own path from our multitude of directions, eventually we will converge together on the Great Path.

    Angela’s last blog post..Switching themes

    Reply
  8. This is insightful and thought provoking as always! You’re right — when you know your passion and can focus on it, energy levels skyrocket and wonderful things happen. Sometimes you do have to do the stuff you don’t like so that you can enable your passion to happen. I’ve been in a situation of having to rechannel my passion somewhat because of chronic illness, but that’s helped me discover that I’m passionate about multiple things. Regardless of where you are, there’s always some way to act on that passion, either fully or partially. Life is good!

    nutuba’s last blog post..March Serenity

    Reply
  9. yes- you are definitely right about that.
    Thumper has ignited a spark in me(actually he brought out several) but I am not the creative person of the two of us.
    I developed a passion to learn the correct wording and some of the filters but will not quit my day job as of yet. The experience is fun and insightful as to how he handles that part of the business.
    Life is a total learning experience and you never know what you are going to learn or from whom – take notice of the options and go where they take you. Growth !

    BunnygotBlog’s last blog post..Value Driven Society

    Reply
  10. @BunnygotBlog I like the part of coding where you invent stuff and ignite some sparks. Some parts of coding are tedious, you’re right, but they’re also part of the “show”. I do like to do other things which are part of the creating value paradigm (at least for myself): gardening, assembling furniture, coaching. As long as I create a perceivable value, I’m ok.

    Coding was the trigger to this, there are many other things that can act as forms for your true passion. In fact, I think there are unlimited forms for your true passion 🙂

    Reply
  11. OK- I have to ask you this: You seriously like to code or you seriously enjoy inventing new functions and making things dynamic. Coding is a long tedious job from my observation.

    I truly think we all have a built in mechanistic when these epiphany’s surface. The more open minded to the more opportunity you is available for the taking.

    From each experience you take away more knowledge.

    Wonderful article.

    BunnygotBlog’s last blog post..Value Driven Society

    Reply
  12. @elena diaconu Thanks for the comment. I like the way you put it in regard to admiration: a reactor to the object. Totally agree with that 🙂

    @Jay I’m really happy when I can touch something like that in my readers. I also highly value your blog and I think you’re doing a terrific job there. Not to mention the job you’re doing here, with all those insightful comments which are constantly adding value. Thank you 🙂

    @Steven Roll thanks for being here. It’s very interesting, one of the things I’ve planned to do is running a marathon sometime in my life. Sounds like the real marathon is something very different from the image I have in my head. Anyway, every person who ran a marathon has my unquestionable and total respect.

    @Jonathan Our path is sometimes hidden by our own glasses. It might be that we’re already walking on it but we’re just so stubborn and instead of fully embracing it we’re just making social concessions for the sake of acceptance, or money, or status. But in the end, the real passion wins. Always 🙂

    @Kikolani welcome to my blog and totally agree with that: when you’re passionate about something almost nothing can stand in your way of achieving it. I would take the “almost” out, though 🙂

    Reply
  13. Admiration vs. passion. That is an interesting insight into the things that can distract us from finding our true path, destiny, desires. Passion is power. That is definitely the truth. When you’re passionate about something, almost nothing can stand in your way of achieving it.

    ~ Kristi

    Kikolani’s last blog post..More Hummingbird Baby Photos

    Reply
  14. I can totally relate to your path of discovery Dragos. I started out in the health and wellness field which has always been a passion of mine and still is. But it wasn’t completely satisfying. However, it did get me close enough to be able to pinpoint and define that core passion. Like you, it didn’t happen overnight, instead it unfolded over time. Now, having taken two different paths, we are both living the joy of creating, sharing and enjoying value for ourselves and others. Excellent post that really touched home!

    Reply
  15. You’ve touched on a topic I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. One of life’s tricks is that once you’ve finally reached a goal you’ve been striving for, it may turn out to be less fulfilling than you imagined. I’ve fantasized for years about running in the Boston Marathon every year. It’s the only marathon that you have to qualify to run in. I ran in it in 2007 and it’s like the Super Bowl of running.

    But after qualifying for it for the second time, I’ve decided to skip it. Why? It doesn’t really fit into my life right now. I’d rather put my time and resources into other things. I’m still running in marathons–just ones that fit within my life better.

    Reply
  16. “All you need is focus and honesty”- just wonderful man. This is so true. 10 years ago I said my passion was getting a degree, and making some money. I was truly focused but I was not honest at all. I hated every minute of that pursuit because it was inauthentic. Every post you right is spot on and speaks to me on very deep levels. Thank you!

    Jay’s last blog post..Inner Noodle’s Guide to Dream Analysis- Step 5

    Reply
  17. Lately i came close to understanding that aquiring power/ discovering your true passionis part of a continuous process of experiencing, experimenting and adding-up knowledge. Learning to become the best version of ourselves, to do the things we get joy out of, at the very best of our ability.

    As you put it, to use all your previous experiences as guidelines towards finding your true passion. Because power is not in the things that give you satisfaction but in those that give you joy.

    I totally agree with your opinion on “admiration”. It tends to limit your own actions making you more of a reactor to the “object of admiration”.

    Reply

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.