3 practical steps to identify your passions

around seven years back

when i was celebrating the end of a

major project a mentor told me

rohan you are smart but you need to be

more interesting

you need to have a passion in life i was

surprised by the comment

what was my passion how do i find my

passion

and wait a minute before we go down that

route what did passion even mean

i literally spent a whole day just

thinking about that

and i drew a blank nothing at all

and then i came across a quote by robin

williams

from dead poet society robin said and i

quote

the human race is filled with passion

medicine

law business engineering these are noble

pursuits

and necessary to sustain life but poetry

beauty romance love these are what we

truly stay alive for

that moment was a wake-up call for me i

was living my life

completely immersed in academics focused

on charting out a great career path

which is not wrong but i realized i was

losing out on so many aspects in life

i thought for a moment could i call a

cat makes my passion

after all many researchers are extremely

passionate about their area of interest

but in my heart of hearts i knew that i

was just kidding myself

for me academics was simply a means to

an end

and not something that truly defined me

and that is when i decided to explore

as many facets of life as i could in

pursuit of my passion

in the past seven years i’ve done

exactly that

i’d never traveled outside india in the

past seven years

i have been to 32 countries most of them

being solo backpacking trips

on a tight budget and i can’t even begin

to recount the experiences

be it spending a whole night chatting

with a refugee in geneva

hiking across the alps along the border

of germany and austria

having delicious hot chocolate in the

foothills of slovenia

walking the corridors of the game of

thrones landmarks

in croatia spending a new year partying

all night long with a bunch of

absolutely crazy hungarians and so many

more memories

traveling has taught me more about life

than books ever could

believe me when you travel you realize

how large and diverse the world really

and how small a place you occupy in this

world you realize

that at the end of the day you are

nothing but a speck of dust in this

world

i had never imagined myself as a

traveler but once i started traveling

i realized i had always been an explorer

at heart and that is when i found my

first passion

a couple of years back i realized why

restrict my love for traveling just to

the land covered areas

i decided to enroll for the open water

diver certification in cambodia

yes scuba diving why scuba

i was asked on the first day of the

course and i couldn’t help but realize

that i had

always been attracted to the seas in all

of my travels

i had spent a major amount of time

either on cruises

or just sitting near the lakes and

beaches in europe gazing at the sea

scuba introduced me to a hidden world

which was so

close yet so far when you actually go

deep inside the sea

and find yourself surrounded by fishes

and other marine animals

you realize you have entered a

completely different world

you simply can’t help but smile when the

fishes come near your face

and look at you with curiosity i

realized

that the marine world is not just

beautiful but adventurous

wild and free and that’s all i ever

wanted to be

and with that i found my second passion

during one of my trips when i was in

frankfurt a few spanish friends decided

to attend a salsa event happening in a

pub

and they just dragged me with them i had

never danced in my life

not even in family functions in fact i

used to actually run away at the mere

mention of dancing

but that one night introduced me to a

world of latin music and dance speeds

i realized how much i enjoyed salsa and

i decided to start learning salsa right

away

i trained in salsa for a couple of years

and i also attended salsa festivals

all over the world in fact i also

started learning bachata

kizumba and even attended a few

workshops in ballroom dancing

just imagine me doing ballroom dancing

i’d never thought i would find my

passion in dancing but if i think back

now

i simply cannot imagine my life without

dance

in fact i look forward to the weekends

when i can

actually dance to my heart’s content in

fact

a couple of years back i also

participated in the india international

dance congress

with dancers from all over the world

from somebody who used to shy away from

dancing

even in family functions to somebody who

was dancing and competing on stage

life has definitely taken a full u-turn

and just like that

before i knew it i’d found my third

passion

i’d always been a reader but a few years

back

i discovered my love for writing the

journey started

with sharing my travel stories and life

experiences

on a platform called quora to my

surprise

i received an enormous amount of love on

the platform

so much that i ended up sharing my

experiences on other social media

platforms as well

like linkedin and instagram and actually

just a few months back

i decided to take my writing journey

even further

by pending down my first novel the

promises we made

from somebody who was always immersed in

books to somebody who has now published

a romantic novel

this has been a journey of a lifetime

and yes

a journey that started with an innocent

sharing of my experiences on quora

has now turned into my fourth passion

you heard it right seven years back i

had embarked on a journey

in pursuit of my passion and i ended up

finding passions worth a lifetime

without affecting my career in the

slightest how did that happen

let me break down the ambiguous concept

of passion

in the form of three practical steps

that all of you can follow to discover

your passions

step number one be ready to experiment

all of us have a comfort zone and

there’s a very natural resistance

against moving out of that zone believe

i can completely relate to it i had

never traveled alone before and

especially not outside india

i used to be someone who would prefer

sitting in my room reading a book

as compared to talking to strangers it

took a lot of courage for me to venture

outside my comfort zone

and take that first step towards

traveling seven years back

when i went to switzerland for my

internship and believe me

that one trip opened a world of

possibilities for me

i realized that contrary to what i had

initially imagined

i really loved hanging out with

strangers in exotic places

and making new friends from all over the

world

a pro tip if you are ever planning to

travel stay in hostels with other

travelers

and there’s so much more you will learn

about history culture

and life let me share another example

like i mentioned i’d never ever danced

before i used to run away from dancing

i decided to experiment with the latin

dance forms and today

i simply cannot stay away from dancing

of all the activities in the world i

never thought i would find a passion in

dancing

and that’s only because i decided to

experiment

with dancing if you haven’t discovered

your passion yet

the chances are that the passion might

lie outside your comfort zone

be ready to experiment with new

activities and you might just discover

your passion

take a pledge today that you would try

at least two new activities

every year and i guarantee you that you

will discover your passion

step number two give time for your

passions to develop

and activity does not become a passion

until you actually spend enough time

pursuing the activity

just as love at first sight is a myth

passion at first sight is also a myth