77: Finding Passion In Your Career

“Find something you’re passionate about, and you’ll never work a day in your life.”

Sounds amazing, right? Easier said than done.

Finding your passion isn’t always as easy as it seems, and you might be taking the wrong approach when it comes to finding something that you truly love to do.

Today on The Bold Life podcast I’ll explain an alternative path to finding your passion that involves your brains’ natural drive to learn. No ah-ha moment required.

The Slow Burn of Finding Passion

Many years ago when I started university I really had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. Initially, I thought I might want to do law but I quickly realized that wasn’t a good fit.

Thankfully, a few years into university I enrolled in an “Introduction to Neuropsychology” course. I had no idea what neuropsychology was, but it ended up being the beginning of a total life and career change for me.

I remember one study in particular where participants wore goggles that flipped their vision upside down. To them it looked like they were walking on the roof. At first, they were disoriented, unbalanced, and probably a little nauseous!

But here’s the cool part – after a couple days wearing the goggles, their brains started to adjust. They’re brains started to learn to flip their vision again, so they slowly started to see the world right side up again even with the goggles on.

Another cool thing that happened was when they eventually took the goggles off, their world flipped back upside down again! With the goggles off was when they saw the world upside down (until a few days later when their brains adjusted again).

I loved studying about how our brains impact our behaviour in this course!

My story doesn’t end there as I continued to grad school, then got my PhD, got to work in a hospital for a long time… And then I realized that that wasn’t really where my passion was.

So a couple years ago I started a new business. I took everything that I had learned about the brain and mental habits, and now I share those strategies to help folks

Get more done in the day
Feel less stressed and overwhelmed
Reach their goals

My point is that even though I had a really exciting experience in that neuroscience course, it ended up taking me years to really find what I was passionate about. And it’s still something I’m working on today!

When it comes to finding passion, you should just know, right?

The truth is, for a long time I thought I was doing this all wrong.

You hear the stories of the kid who jumped in a pool, realized they liked swimming, and swam their way to the Olympics.

But sometimes our interest and passion aren’t sparked by just one experience. The interest might be ignited a little, but we’re interested in lots of other things too. Many of these interests don’t develop into a passion.

More often than not, it’s a myth that we find our passion instantaneously. Passion is something that develops over time for our brains. The problem is, we think passion should be this magic moment. That can stop you from persevering.

If you think of some areas that you really enjoy right now, like your job or a hobby, you’ll probably remember that it wasn’t all that fun in the beginning when you were first starting out. Why? Because it’s hard to start something new! And our brain doesn’t really like hard things.

By setting false expectations about your ah-ha moment, you’ll be more tempted to give up when it doesn’t happen right away. But if you give up, you’ll never do the work that it takes to develop your passion (because remember – it’s not instantaneous!).

Pro tip: Your brain actually becomes more interested in an activity the more time you put into it! Because your brain likes things that are familiar.

For me, the more I learned about brains and neuroscience, the more I loved brains and neuroscience.

The more time you put into something, the more enjoyable and rewarding it becomes. Kinda like riding a bike. It was a super tough to learn at first, but now you can enjoy a bike ride through the park.

In her book Grit, Angela Duckworth interviewed successful individuals about finding their passion. What she found was that more often than not, passion wasn’t a sudden spark.

Effort over years fosters that passionate interest. Check out episode #69 of The Bold Life podcast to learn more about Angela Duckworth’s book Grit, and how the ability to stick to one passion for a long time is really what leads to our long term success. You can listen to it here: https://www.drnicolebyers.com/blog/episode69

So don’t be too hard on yourself if you don’t instantly find your passion or that career you were “meant” to do. Chances are it’s going to take some time and some work.

So How Do You Find What You’re Truly Passionate About?

Try. New. Things!

And try them for long enough to help your brain learn some interest.

In her book, Angela Duckworth recommends two years of sticking to your new activity or hobby. It seems like a huge commitment, but those two years could pay off with a lifetime of happiness and fulfillment. Two years might be worth it to find your passion!

The idea is that if you stick to it long enough, your brain will be able to accurately evaluate if you’ve truly found a passion.

So pick something and stick to it. At least long enough until you start to improve. As soon as your start to improve and make progress, your brain is going to be more likely to continue anyways, because that progress is motivating for your brain.

Wanna learn more?

Check out my new free workbook “Your Daily Productivity Checklist” to learn the right mental habits to have a productive day and how to avoid spending the whole day at work feeling busy and overwhelmed. It includes neuroscience based strategies to boost your productivity at work, all while feeling less overwhelmed.

You can find it at www.drnicolebyers.com/checklist

Show Highlights

[01:33] How I decided on my passion for life and what I wanted to do as a career.

[05:07] Why we shouldn’t ‘just know’ our passion and career from the start.

[08:57] Your brain becomes more interested in things when you put more time into them.

[11:24] Listen to my previous episode on grit and how it can help you reach your goal.

[12:43] Progress is motivating for your brain.

Subscribe Today!