Here’s two HUGE questions that I keep thinking about. Maybe you do, too:
“What’s my purpose?”
and
“What am I passionate about?”

There’s a lot of resources online for helping us to figure this out.  Here’s some questions I’ve come across…

• When you go to a bookstore, what section do you go to?
• When you wake up in the morning, what do you think about?
• If you had $1 million, where would you spend it?

I’ve answered questions like these over and over, but the answers don’t seem to get me any closer to defining my passion and purpose.

But I think I’ve been looking at it the wrong way…

I listened to a LeadersIn podcast interview with Simon Sinek (he’s famous for the Start with Why TED Talk) and he shared what he learned about passion and purpose from his work with changemakers around the world.

Around 11-minute mark of the podcast, Simon talks about his frustration with the frequent advice to simply “Do what you love.” and to “Find your passion.”
What are we supposed to do with that?

He’s learned that passion is not found at the entry point, but at the exit.

Passion is a result.

“When we commit ourselves to some higher purpose, some higher cause, passion is the result.  When we work hard for something we don’t believe in, it’s called stress.  When we work hard for something we do believe in, it’s called passion.”

If passion comes as a result of working toward a higher purpose, then how do we find our purpose?
This can take on a variety of forms in practice – fighting injustice, reducing carbon emissions, combating food insecurity – but thankfully the root of our purpose is simple.  Simon said that great leaders making change have a purpose of putting the needs and wants of other people before their own. 

So today, start with a purpose of serving others and soon we’ll find our passion.