A friend of mine told me the other day: “I am looking for my passion.” She has no idea what to do in terms of work, and that makes it hard to find a job, not even mentioning how hard it is to find a nice job. It made me think about passion in general – doing something you really love to do. Successful people found their passion, because it was passion for something that made them go further than the others, becoming the #1 in their expertise.

Passion is one of the strongest emotions that drive us. It’s made up of desire to do something, enthusiasm once you are doing it and a great deal of satisfaction once done. You could do it all day long and in case of work, you probably won’t even notice it is actually work you’re doing. It can be life transforming once you know what you really want in life instead of going with the flow.

Your family might recognize your passion

By the time I realized what some of my greatest passions are, I could direct them back to my early childhood years. It was my grandpa used to say that I should become town-crier. Though this profession has become redundant, I have no difficulties seeing the connection with my job as communications manager and my desire to write blogs here on HowToLiveWow.com.

Ask your close relatives when they see you passionate. You can also ask your colleagues, your best friend, an old school teacher… Very often, people around you instantly notice when you go from passive mode to passion mode.

Describe your perfect day

At the age of 25 (hey, that’s me for example), you’ve spent over 9,000 days on planet earth. 9,000 days, and not a single one has been the same. You’ve had good days and bad days. Some memorable, others quite forgettable. But every single day offered you the opportunity to figure out what your Perfect Day looks like. It’s something most people never thought about in the first place: What does your Perfect Day look like? Describe it, hour by hour, maybe even minute by minute. What time do you wake up? Next to whom? What kind of coffee do you drink? Where are you going for work? Are you even going? What’s the weather like? Once you know what your Perfect Day looks like, you can start moving towards it.

What do you want to do for other people?

Nearly every job is about doing something for another person. Whether you work at an airplane manufacturer, where you build something that helps people to get from A to B, or at Starbucks, where you serve people delicious coffee, or in a hospital, where you help making sick people healthy again… You do something for other people! That’s a great starting point to figure out your true passion. Ask yourself what you want to do for other people, rather than asking what job you should hunt for. Very often, you can distillate several job opportunities from the answer to this question.