What if I’m not passionate about anything?

There’s a phrase I hear from many of my clients that breaks my heart every time.

Just last week I heard it again from a new client (who we’ll call Casey). She desperately wants to find her passion and feel like she has some sort of clear career direction, and yet, midway through our session she confided her biggest fear about this.

She asked me, in a slightly anxious tone, “What if I don’t have a passion or talent? What if I’m the kind of person who’s just not passionate about anything?”

Even though I’ve heard it more times than I can count, this question always hits me square in the chest.

Not only could I so clearly see how insanely untrue it was for her — seriously, every single client I’ve ever worked with has been hugely talented, passionate, and fascinating, even if they couldn’t see it at first — but it also made me remember feeling the exact same way several years ago.

IF YOU’RE WONDERING IF YOU EVEN HAVE A PASSION … YOU’RE NOT ALONE

As Casey continued opening up about her deepest concerns, it reminded me of all my own old fears.

Because Casey didn’t think she had an innate calling, she’d come to believe that she would simply never enjoy working.

She’d given up on ever feeling passionate about her work. 

In fact, her goal when she started coaching was simply to feel “not miserable” about her job. She’d come to the conclusion that she would probably never really enjoy her career, so she came to me hoping I could help her feel better about settling. The worst part was, she was so disconnected from her desires, passions, and motivators, that she admitted to me that she worried she was becoming “boring.”

Yeah … that didn’t fly with me.

Week after week, I helped Casey reconnect with the amazing aspects of herself that she’d been taking for granted, burying under outdated beliefs, and simply ignoring for years.

I’ve heard hundreds of people voice the same fear that maybe they don’t have a “thing” … maybe they’re just not passionate about anything. As normal as this fear is, it’s never true.

To be alive is to have passion, preferences, interests, curiosities, and ideas. It’s part of our very human-ness. To be a human inherently means you have the capacity for passion … you may have just temporarily disconnected yourself from your passion.

DID THE UNIVERSE FORGET ABOUT ME?

You know how some people have known, since they were 5 years old, what they wanted to “be” when they grew up? My mom, for example, knew she would become a nurse when she was in elementary school, and she never wavered in that knowing. And she’s happily been a nurse for her entire career. I think that’s amazing!

But I’ve never been one of those people. 

If you’d asked me as a kid what I wanted to do as a “grown up,” I would’ve given you a different answer depending on what day you asked. There were a few things I always enjoyed — reading, writing, spending lazy afternoons outside, having long, deep conversations and making up elaborate stories with my best friends, etc. — but they were mostly things I did just for fun. They weren’t anything you could make a “real” career out of.

When it came time for me to get my first “real job” several years ago, I couldn’t help but feel like, if the Universe was responsible for doling out passions, talents, and strengths, maybe it had somehow forgotten about me. Maybe I’d been left out. I was pretty sure I just didn’t have a “calling.”

Thankfully, some small, persistent voice inside of me didn’t allow me to give into that fear. I had a tiny spark of hope that I really could feel passionate about my work in the world.

THE ONE SHIFT THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING

For years, I’d been limiting myself based on self-judgment and tons of fear.

I judged myself for being “good but not great” at several things. And I didn’t believe I could have a real career based on my natural talents, which were mostly “soft skills,” like communicating and relating to people. If I’d given into those fears, Clarity on Fire would never had existed.

Everything shifted for me when I finally gave myself permission …

… Permission to explore what truly energized me,

… Permission to pursue an unconventional path,

… Permission to believe that my interests and natural talents were “legitimate” career options.

Permission changes everything.

My client Casey was disconnecting herself from feeling passion based on beliefs she picked up from her family. She loved yoga and told me she secretly dreamed of becoming an instructor and eventually opening her own studio, but her family (who were mostly doctors, lawyers, or accountants) didn’t view that as a “legitimate” career. So she shut the idea down before it had even fully formed in her mind.

Permission changed everything for Casey, too. She let go of her family’s beliefs and is now in yoga teacher training, where she’s feeling more alive than she’s felt in years.

When you give yourself permission to explore your interests, desires, and talents, with no judgment and no limiting beliefs clouding things up, you open up the door for reconnecting to your passions. As soon as you take the limitations off of yourself (because no one else will remove them for you), you allow yourself to feel curious and passionate again. You allow opportunities and doors to open for you, often to things you never thought possible.

HERE’S WHAT I KNOW FOR SURE

It’s taken me a few years to really, truly believe this (and to see enough “proof” in the lives of countless clients), but I can now tell you with complete certainty: Everyone has a passion. I 100% believe that every single person is wildly talented and capable of amazing things.

The problem is that most of us are extremely disconnected from our talents and desires because we never gave ourselves permission to explore and appreciate our own uniqueness.

Everyone has a passion. Give yourself permission to explore yours in a judgment-free zone.

Much Love,

Kristen (+ Rachel) SaveSave

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