It’s About Passion Baby
Page 9 excerpt from . . .
Find Your Dream:5 Simple Steps For Figuring Out What You Want To Do Next With Your Life!
In order to be successful at dream achievement, you must first be sure you love what it is you are going after. Passion keeps you in the game during all the highs and lows of dreaming. Passion gets you up at 4:00am to write that book you dream of publishing. Passion makes you eat more rice when you are sick of it, because you are saving all your money for your dream trip to Italy. Passion makes you train in the rain while preparing for the marathon you promised yourself you’d complete before you turn 40.
Before you jump feet first into going after a dream, it’s important to investigate what you love – to be sure of what it is about that particular dream that makes your heart sing. Because sometimes we think we want one thing, and we begin exploring it, only to find we don’t like it after all. This happens because we are disconnected from what it is we loved about it.
For example, let’s say you explore getting back into running because you loved to run as a child and successfully competed in some races. You think you miss it terribly, so you buy some running shoes and begin to hit the pavement, only to remember all the things you once hated about running and the reasons you quit.
The dream process can be like this, if you don’t stop to explore everything you loved doing as a child, and why you loved running as much as you did.
Through investigating your past, you may discover you loved running because it took you away from home, up into the hills, where you loved to explore new trails and experience new situations. By exploring your past and your present loves, you may discover this is a common theme in your life, and what you really dream is to be an Outdoor Guide.
For this reason, I’ve put together some exercises to help you explore what makes you feel happy – joyous – happy – blissful (pick your own word). . .
________________________________
Working through the exercises in the e-book . . .
I thought I’d walk through how I filled out the first worksheet on Page 11 and how I processed the information, so that those of you who are reading the Find Your Dream e-book can see how to work with your answers. If you haven’t purchased the book, you can still do this too!
Exploring Your Past . . .
Exercise 1 in the book is – Think back to when you were young. What did you love to do before you were 12, or when you were in grade school? List all the things you liked doing that made your heart sour. Only list those things you enjoyed before 7th grade. Try and come up with as many things as possible. This should be done quickly so you don’t have time for doubt, or over-think your answers.
(If you don’t have the Find Your Dream e-book, you can do this too by putting a big T on a piece of paper and put “This gave Me Joy” over the left column and It “I Felt” over the right column. If you have the e-book go to the Find Your Dream Worksheet #1 on page 11)
What were my answers to what I loved and felt . . .?
- Riding my bike – made me feel free, adventurous, excited, new experiences, happy, independent.
- Playing with doll house – made me feel excited, happy, content, independent.
- Ballet/dancing – made me feel free, alive, adventurous, challenged, special, excited.
- Telling stories – made me feel alive, excited, loved, happy.
- Writing in diary – made me feel content, loved, competent, happy, special, independent.
- Performing – made me feel happy, loved, alive, competent, free, special, new experiences.
- Setting up performances – made me feel loving, caring, excited, free, new experiences.
- Gardening with my Dad – made me feel loved, smart, caring, special, content, safe, happy.
- Helping my Dad fix things – made me feel loved, smart, caring, special, content, safe, happy, loving.
- Drawing and coloring – made me feel free, content, smart, safe, adventurous, happy, independent.
- Reading – made me feel happy, adventurous, smart, free, excited, safe, new experiences, independent, competent.
- Putting on the clothes my mother made for me -made me feel loved, caring, content, happy, joy, special, safe.
- Ice skating – made me feel independent, adventurous, joy, free, excited, happy, content, special, competent.
Now we ignore what gives us joy and only look at our feelings. Mine looks like this -
- Happy – 11 times
- Content – 7 times
- Free – 7 times
- Excited – 6 times
- Independent – 6 times
- Competent – 5 times
- Safe – 5 times
- Loved – 5 times
- Special – 5 times
- Caring – 4 times
- Adventurous – 4 times
- New Experiences – 3 times
- Loving – 2 times
- Challenged – 1 time
This only captures one period in my life so far, when I was very young (age 12 and under) and it is not unusual to see that it is most important that I be happy, content, free, excited, and independent. What small child doesn’t live this way? Is this still true for me today? Yes, but we aren’t done yet.
Part of the process in working through the worksheets in the book are seeing what shows up for us. It is always different for everyone. You will be surprised at what you discover.
Does this mean that I should run out and be a bike rider for a living? No. It means that bicycle riding represents something completely individual to me. For someone else it may very well mean getting involved in bike racing, but not me. What bicycle riding represents for me is travel. I love to travel. But as a young girl, bicycle riding was the closest thing to independent traveling. I’m getting a little ahead of myself here, but you can see where I am going with this.
I make the point in the book that you have to be a detective in your life and look at your answers from many different angles. Was I really good at any of these things that gave me joy? Yes. I was good at dancing, riding my bike, redecorating my doll house, gardening, reading, performing and telling stories. There are those who might believe that my dream lives in doing something from this list from the worksheet. Does it?
Not so fast.
As I continue through the next exercises in the Find Your Dream e-book, my answers might change and so may yours. It’s why I am doing the entire book in three stages. I want you to spend time with your answers so you become certain of what brings you the most joy.
What are your thoughts?
What did you find out about yourself?
Is it difficult for you to remember what you loved? If it is, I have an exercise to help you with that next week.
Keep on dreaming -
Catherine
We’ve started to work on the 8 Women Dream Worldwide part of this project where we invite you to dream with us. Please go to our 8 Women Dream Worldwide page and consider challenging the world to help you with your big dream. Be creative – send us something fun. You never know – it could change your life!
Catherine’s dream is to be a motivator and published writer. She is testing her theories on motivation with this blog and the seven other women who have volunteered to be a part of her dream project. Catherine also writes about her life as a mom at the blog A Week In The Life Of A Redhead. She would also like to be invited to speak at TED as the next Erma Bombeck. Catherine posts on Monday mornings.
Download your copy of Find Your Dream now! What are you waiting for – it’s cheap!
Catherine’s dream is to make 8 Women Dream the premier online publication for women looking to change their lives. She is a published author, known for her humorous speeches on finding your dream life and blogging for fun and profit. Catherine also writes about her life as a mom at the blog, A Week in the Life of A Redhead and several online marketing publications. She would also like to be invited to speak at TED about her observations on people chasing their big dreams. Catherine posts on Sunday evenings and fills in when needed. Join me on Google+ rapieress@aol.com
This content is published under the Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
