You want to find your passions and feed your soul with meaningful pursuits that make you feel alive and energized.

Sound about right?

WELCOME TO LIFE 2.0

You take a breath.

A satisfied smile stretches across your face. You are here.

Then…..The Questions begin.

What’s next? Who am I? How do I reinvent? What do I really want for myself and my life? How do I live a life full of meaning? What are my passions?

Yikes…..self doubt and uncertainty are suddenly activated. You give yourself a shake.

You’d expected to launch into Life Part 2.0 graciously…effortlessly…seamlessly. Without missing a beat you thought you’d dust off all those things “you’d always wanted to do” and dive in.

But if you’re like most of us you’re hard pressed to remember all those things you’d always wanted to do. If you can recall you’re surprised to find the sparkle has left. Was I really interested in that??

Hmmm….this appears to be new territory.

After being a passionate professional for more than 20 years be it Mom, career person, business owner, CEO what do you do in this new place? When you’ve followed a script your whole life, what do you do when you don’t know the next chapter? More importantly, how do you create a new life story for yourself?

No easy answers here. But it is possible to create a new life story. Your life – your Life Part 2.0 – can be bigger, more exciting, and rewarding as anything that came before.

It doesn’t matter who you were in Life Part I. This is a clean slate…a new beginning. It can be as dynamic as you want it to be. All that really matters is that you’re ready to step out and surprise yourself.

Ready? Here’s the plan.

CONNECT WITH YOUR PASSIONS

We all have them, sometimes we just have to dig for them. Your passions are within in you. They are in your heart, soul, spirit or whatever word does it for you. Passions fall into the following categories:

• Childhood Interests (before you were conditioned to follow parental or societal expectations).
• Curiosities (whatever subject, place, topic tweaks your interest).
• Before I die I want to _____ (all the dreams, hobbies, wishes you have).
• Alter Ego (your wildest, scariest, impossible, shameful dreams and desires).

Think of yourself as a scientist and start ‘testing’ some of these.

Nothing to lose right?

Let the FUN begin.

Get on with it!

THERE IS NO LIMIT ON PASSIONS

Who said there’s a limit on passions? You can have as many as you want. Some will break along the way. Some will bloom into flowers and then fruits. Passions can change. Some stay throughout life and others fade away. The more you’re connected to yourself, the more likely you will feel what passion is true for you at this moment and how much you want to invest in it. It’s easy to get confused exploring too many passions, we can overwhelm ourselves with activity as an escape and fear of failure. If we have too many, we don’t go all the way, and we don’t truly experience success or failure. The good thing about focusing on a passion and finding out it’s not worth pursuing is that you can move on. Mission accomplished.

A woman I know did a great job of ‘testing’ a passion in Life 2.0.  She wanted to walk the epic Camino trail in Spain. She was excited and ambitious. Then she realized that it might be a good idea to first do a shorter one-week walk somewhere closer to home before committing to a 500 mile trek. She did and then came to the understanding she didn’t need to go to Spain – she moved onto to testing another passion.

Find ways to break your passions into bite-sized pieces. Try it out for a day, a week, or a month. Talk to people who are doing what you think you’d like to do. If it doesn’t feel right, there’s nothing wrong with walking away. It’s OK to try something and not like it. It’s also OK to try something once and completely fall in love with it.

Thought you might like this post on how to Test your Dreams (or Passions) – Be a Dream Tester

PASSIONS TRANSFORM, FADE AWAY, RETURN, EXPAND

Close your eyes and imagine your favorite tree. The branches are your passions but what connects all the branches is the trunk. The trunk is what brings you meaning in life. Your meaning does not change it only deepens.

Passions are an expression of life and just like life they change, die, are born and emerge. When you think about your passions this way, you will approach them with an open mind and experimentation. One passion can reveal another one. There is no right way or wrong way to find out what we love. It is a journey of learning at worst and fulfillment at best. The important thing is to get into action testing and exploring.

GETTING TO THE ROOT OF YOUR PASSIONS

Are you familiar with Simon Sinek? He’s one of my favorite business/life authors. He’s an acclaimed business leadership expert but his knowledge and expertise applies to everyday life just as much as Fortune 500 companies.  He gave one of the most watched TED talks ever and wrote, Start with Why, one of the most popular books of the last decade. Both his book and Ted talk support the belief that to create success in anything in life we must know the answer to why. Personal ‘Why’s’ are  the core drivers of our lives — Why am I here? Why do I want to explore this path? Why is it important to me?

The answers to the Why’s connect to your inner self.  Once the connection is made clarity and understanding follow. This concept changed my life.

See Simon’s TED talk Flies

HOW TO FIND YOUR WHY

The single most important question you’ll ever ask yourself.

WHY?

ACTION STEP: You can do this yourself on paper but it is much more effective when done with a partner. Do it solo only if there is no other option.

List your passions. Pair up with a friend and invite them to ask you 3 – 5 times – WHY about each passion you have. Think of it as peeling the layers off an onion. Do this for at least 3 passions and you will see a theme emerge.

For example, one of my passions is – Learning. Why do I want to learn? Because I want to expand. Why? Because I want to be constantly growing and curious. Why? Because I want to reach my potential (whatever that may be). Why? Because I want to have impact. Why? Because I want to share and help others.

Almost all of my Whys come back to reaching potential and helping others.  It explains many things I’ve done in my life and reinforces what I’m doing and want to do with Red Shoe Zone is aligned with my passion and purpose. That feels good. Fulfilled.

Promise me you’ll try this exercise. I’ve facilitated, How to Find Your WHY many, many times and the outcome is always profound. What’s uncovered is astonishing in terms of depth, meaning and insight.

You will be surprised.

Please pass this post along to a friend who is searching for passion. It will help them turn the search for passions  into an inspiring process and break it down into fun manageable easy to implement steps.

If you are looking for a WHY partner and coach – take a look at what I offer. I’d be honored to work with you.

My wish for you is that you dive into Life 2.o with arms wide open and a hope filled heart and you give yourself permission to follow your passions and dream big dreams.

Thanks for being with me on this awesome journey

Cheryl x

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