How to Find What You Love in 7 Easy Steps

Have you ever thought you were meant to do more with your life than what you’re doing now?

Having a worthwhile and inspiring goal that challenges you to be your best is one of the most important things you can do to be fulfilled and successful.

But how do you find that goal? Will it just fall from the sky some day?

Not bloody likely.

No. You have to start by finding what you love to do. The only way to do great things is to do what you love to do. That’s the only way you’re going to be truly motivated to get really great at it. Because you can’t not do it.

And your goal must be something that involves doing what you love doing, something that would be the direct result of doing what you love.

So let’s look at how you can go about finding what you love.

Step 1: Take money out of the equation. If you love doing it, you’d be willing to do it for free. If you do what you love, money will follow. So focus on what you love doing so much you’d do it for free.

Step 2: Focus on what you enjoy, rather than what you’re good at. It’s pretty common to be good at something that’s not truly your passion, and everyone around you is trying to persuade you to stick to what you do so well. But if you feel drained rather than energized after doing it, it’s not what you love. Get rid of it.

Step 3: Ignore outside recognition. If you truly love it, you’d do it even if no-one saw you do it or recognized you for it. Your motivation has to come from the inside.

Step 4: Focus on the feeling, not the thing. Think about the activities you’ll be doing and how they’ll make you feel, not the end result – company you’ll build, the prize you’ll win, etc. Finding what you love is about the process, not the outcome.

Step 5: Don’t overlook the most obvious things. Sometimes we believe that what we do with the most ease, is easy for everyone else, too, so it’s not a differentiator. But that’s typically not the case. Your passion might be right in front of your eyes.

Step 6: Think back to at least 3 situations in your past that you loved, where you felt you were on a roll. What were you doing? What about the situation made you love it?

Step 7: For the next week or two, keep a small notebook with you at all times, and write down every situation that you love, and every situation that you hate. At the end of the week, take a look at the situations you loved, and find out what specifically about the situation made you love it. Do the same with the situations you hated. This will give you insights into what activities you love.

Expect to meet resistance within yourself. It could be the thought that you’re not worth it, that you should be doing something even though you don’t like it, fear of what the consequences might be, and so on. For now, just allow the thoughts to be without believing that they’re necessarily true and move forward with your work finding what you love.

Trust that you will find what you love. It may take a while, but keep looking. And trust that it’ll be worth it. Life’s too short and too important to give up on this.

In the words of Steve Jobs:

The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

Let me know when you’ve found what you love, and please share with me what it is.

And let me know how the process worked for you, and please share your own tips and additions and alterations.