Success Step One – Find Your Passion

You have probably heard the adage “the first step is the hardest.”  Nothing could be truer when it comes to success!  It’s the reason most people flounder or never reach their goals.  Because to get there you need to look within first, and define what you want out of life for yourself.  I’m not talking about houses, cars, money, your company etc.  I’m talking emotionally what do you want!!!

Defining Success for Your Life

Many business people skip this step and jump right into defining their business goals. The problem with this approach is at somewhere down the road you’ll hit a point and ask yourself, “is this all there is to life?”  You’ll lose your passion and your drive, and the business will begin to sputter and suffer too.  See my post “Why So Many Small Business Owner are Unhappy” to understand what happens in this situation.

Defining life success means going beyond just “things” (houses, cars, money, etc.) and getting to WHY you want these things.  What feeling do you believe you will experience by having these things and how have you been able to create those feelings in the past?  One question I like to ask people is “what are you most proud of in your life, and why?”  Rarely is my big house or expensive car the answer.  More often than not it’s something they accomplished or an emotional experience they experienced, like the birth of their children or meeting their soul mate.

When you begin to recognize that those things motivate you more because they are emotional, you’ll find the way you approach your business changes too.  It is with this deep emotional tie to your business that you will create success.  And, because it is tied to this deep emotion which you want to experience in your life, you get life balance.

Knocking Down Obstacles

A secondary benefit of this approach is the added passion  provided to everything that you do.  Passion is a powerful weapon.  Think about a time when something threatened you or your family.  How did you react?  How do you think you would react if you had this same kind of connection to EVERYTHING you did in your life?

Standing up to do what you have to doesn’t become as difficult.  Calling to collect on a late invoice or negotiating with someone that is being unreasonable becomes much easier.  Doing all the things you must become easier, because you’re fighting for what you believe in and you feel it.

This is how you connect with your passion.  Most experts will tell you you need passion to be successful, but cannot tell you how to find it.  You can find it!  We help people find it all the time.  If you want to find your passion too, I would suggest looking at our Personal & Business Goal Assessment.  It steers you through a set of very revealing questions that help you see what drives your passion.  Once you know what drives you, it becomes much simpler to set your goals and objectives and doing the things you need to achieve success.

Next week we’ll take a look at how to use your new found passion to establish a more powerful vision for your business.  Stay tuned for more!