Listen: 30 min | Read: 10 min | Watch: 15 min
Let’s be honest.
Midway through last year, I experienced a profound passion slump. It wasn’t a dramatic burnout or breakdown experience. Just a temporary feeling of ‘meh’. No doubt many of you have felt the same at some point.
In this article, we’re going to focus ‘passion-lows’ in simpler terms; when you feel like you’ve had your groove stolen. A healthy place to start is by accepting that we’re in a rut, but not accepting it as a final resting place.
Be encouraged. Experiencing the highs and lows of passion is a beautiful expression of what it means to be human; fallible yet fully able.
Note: if you’re experiencing symptoms of burnout or depression, I recommend seeking assistance from a healthcare professional.
Define and conquer
Before we dive into forming a battle plan to revive our lost passion (feeling), it would serve us well to recap the definition as proposed in episode 25 with guest Moustafa Hamwi, an international speaker and subject expert.
Here’s how Moustafa defines it in his eBook “Mastering Passion”:
“Passion is consistently doing what you love, what you are good at, and is of value to the world.”
Let’s break it down:
1. Consistently: you have to keep it going day-in day-out, passion is not a matter of luck, it’s a matter of persistence.
2. What you love: you have to be able to do what you love, or love what you do. It’s a two-way street.
3. Good at: as humans we love results and you will never feel good about something that you’re not good at.
4. Of value to the world: if your passion has no purpose to serve, and does not provide value to others, then it's just a hobby.
Great, now that we vividly understand what passion is, how do we revive it? So glad you asked.
A simple plan
Before you crank up the volume on a Rocky soundtrack and put warpaint on your face, pause. Slow down. Create a plan. A simple plan.
It would be an understatement to say that my ability to overthink things is quite remarkable. If you’re anything like me, then we have a choice to either keep going down the rabbit hole of “poor me I’ve lost my passion” or down a different road to create a clear, simple, fail-proof plan.
Below I’ll share with you the secret plan I used to pull myself out of the passion slump I experienced in part of 2016.
6 Ways to Revive Lost Passion
1 - Revisit Loves & Interests
The things we love often remain consistent, while the things we are interested in, often change.
Your Activity:
Think back to when you were younger. What tangible and intangible things, did you love?
Now look at the things you were interested in over the last few years. Are you still interested in them now, and to the same extent?
Write up your responses on a sheet of paper with a column for each.
Are you actively pursuing things you love?
Are you focusing on areas of interest that are current, or out of date (often without realising)?
Example:
I love, and continue to love, branding. However the elements of branding I was interested in have changed. After identifying this, I pivoted to areas of greater interest, which has given me renewed energy.
2 - Take opposite action
There are times when we need to trick ourselves into doing what is best for us. To keep things simple for myself, I call it ‘taking opposite action’.
Your Activity:
Maintain a ‘vocab log’ for one full day (like a food diary for your vocabulary).
Look for patterns of helpful and unhelpful self-talk phrases.
Choose phrases or words that you would like to deliberately switch, to create affirmative action.
Example:
“I never seem to have time for my hobbies” could be switched to “I can make time for my hobbies”.
3 - Get active
When you’re in an emotional funk, the last thing you want is for someone to tell you to exercise. In my social media feeds, you won’t find photos of me sipping a kale smoothy at 6am at an indie cafe, after a daily 10 kilometre morning run. Never! But, you will see me staying active.
In a previous episode, I interviewed a fitness expert on how you and I can ‘commit to fit’ by smashing the top 5 roadblocks we experience on our journey to becoming fit.
Broadly speaking, exercise is scientifically proven to boost your mood, improve sleeping patterns and increase energy levels.
Your Activity:
Listen to Podcast episode “Commit to Fit: Top 5 Roadblocks to Fitness”.
If you need to, accept/forgive yourself for not exercising as much as you could have :).
Look for small wins and set achievable goals. Light exercise 2-3 times a week is a great start.
Consider boosting your motivation by finding a training buddy.
Example:
I aim to blog and recording after exercise (gym or a short walk). Energy and motivation are often higher as a result.
4 - Cultivate creativity
Over the last 12 months, I’ve placed a big focus on finding ways to ‘do common things, in an uncommon way’. What does this mean? It means looking at your current lifestyle, and finding creative ways to keep the routines feeling fresh.
Consider the things you do, without realising it. Could you be doing them in a fresh and interesting way? Turn off autopilot, and look for different ways to reach the same destination.
Your Activity:
Write out an overview of your morning and evening schedule.
Then write out your weekly routine.
Consider ways that you could refresh the things you already do on autopilot.
Think about creating new weekly/monthly traditions with your family and friends.
Example:
This Podcast and Blog was born out of an existing desire to help people, but in a fresh, new way. I thought about the things people were already sharing with me, and I began to realise that there’s probably people around the world experiencing similar things. This meant that I had to push past my fears, publish my thoughts and hopefully help people in the process - ie. same mission, different method.
5 - Discuss your dreams
For some of us, the idea of sharing our dreams and desires with close friends can be daunting. If you’ve had your trust broken in the past, you’ve probably got good motive to keep your heart tightly closed. If that’s you, let me encourage to consider trying again.
As individuals, we function better when we have a sense of community. If we become self reliant in a bid to protect ourselves, we can miss out on the support that our friends want to provide - if we would only ask.
Your Activity:
Listen to Podcast episode “How to Review Your Year + FREE eBook”
Ask yourself, “what could I be doing to foster a greater sense of community among my friends”?
Wisely choose 2 close friends to book a coffee appointment with (separately).
What things am I prepared to share with these friends? (create boundaries).
In what ways could I reciprocate, and show support for my friends dreams and goals?
Example:
Because I wanted to discuss business dreams, I chose friends who I’ve shared a long history with, and that possessed business experience. We often talk about their business desires in the process.
6 - Reduce cognitive overload
You’ve heard me often say that I believe ‘overwhelm leads to underachievement’. But where do we start? That in itself is overwhelming!
Passion can only be sustainable if we have mental resources available to allocate to it. Last year I started by going on a hunt to find things that were unnecessarily occupying space in my mind. I currently use Asana to capture and organise tasks into categories that I can deal with later.
I’m on a mission to do less, better. Research shows that having more than 3 piles of ‘to do’ things on your office desk can trigger the beginnings of overwhelm.
Your Activity:
Count how many ‘to do’ things’ you have on your office desk.
Write a list of everything that is currently crowding your mind.
Start by listing the issues that haved caused you the most anxiety within the last 72 hours.
Write your initials next to the items that require you to act.
Then draw a star next to the items that could be delegated to someone else. Start to developing a system to delegate tasks.
Draw a diamond symbol against the issues, that after reflection, you feel are not as problematic as you once originally thought :)
Which software/apps could you be using to help capture and manage tasks?
Example:
Often times the rush of anxiety provoking tasks come as I’m drifting off to sleep at night. To combat this, I capture these thoughts into an app (like Asana), and then deal with them the coming days. This allows me to fall asleep much faster compared to the nights that I don’t note them down.
Over to you
Now that you’re armed with a plan, you’re well on the way to storming the gates on your mission to retrieve your lost passion. Let’s recap:
1 - Revisit Loves & Interests
2 - Take opposite action
3 - Get active
4 - Cultivate creativity
5 - Discuss your dreams
6 - Reduce Cognitive Overload
Be encouraged, you’ve got this!
Know someone who’s going through a passion low? Support them by sharing this article and podcast with them :)
Note: I receive no affiliate benefit for software mentioned in this article. In relation to health, if you’re experiencing symptoms of burnout or depression, I recommend seeking assistance from a healthcare professional.
