How to Heat up the Passion for your Work you Already Have Inside of You

June 10th, 2010 | Alex Mathers

Much is said about the importance of being focused on one thing in your area of work that you become good at and well known for. This is contrary to the idea of being a ‘jack of all trades’ whereby you will inevitably lose some of the rigour and credibility that comes with specializing in many areas.

Ideally, as a creative professional, even if you work on a variety of roles, you have one skill that you are particularly focused on and are developing to be known for. The long term success of being known for a particular skill, whether it be website coding, illustration or music production, requires true passion for it.

If you have a focus in your work life on something you are passionate for, that’s excellent. Sometimes we can lose our way over time, and passion for what we do diminishes, or we simply get caught up in other areas of life and just forget about what we were passionate about in the first place.

Since having passion is so important, this post is about re-igniting and cultivating the passion that is already there inside you, so that you can continue to focus on your area with dedication and with great results. This can also be used for those of you who are looking to find their area of focus, which they are passionate about, but haven’t yet.

Here’s how to do this:

1. Write down ten things that are exciting or interesting about your area of work or a potential area of work.

2. Now write down three things that are interesting about each of the points you noted previously. Just keep what you have found in mind.

3. Spend half an hour looking through some good blogs or books that relate to your area of focus, and just drink it all in. Look for things that excite you and get you passionate. Consider printing out some images to inspire you that you can throw into your diary, a scrapbook, or on your wall.

4. Know your role-models. Think about who in the world you really admire and inspire you, perhaps even writing them down. Ideally what they do would relate to your work area, but simply being inspired by people who have achieved can really help boost the passion you have for your own path in life.

5. Read the biography of someone who has experienced success in the area of work you want to boost your passion in.

6. Do a training course in your area of focus or get out a book that will get you to expand on what you know about your skill. Either learn about the foundations of what you do, so that you feel generally more confident, or gain new knowledge to add to what you already know. This will add to your confidence, which will undoubtedly boost the passion you have for what you do.

7. Find somewhere comfortable to sit and get relaxed. Now spend a few minutes visualizing experiencing success in your area of work or achieving a goal related to your work. Think with no limits. Really turn up the vividness of this image, add sound and touch and colour in your mind.

The key thing is to effectively ‘burn’ the thought into your mind, so that you have a strong, positive picture in your mind that will help guide you towards success with passion in your work.

8. Set aside a day or more completely dedicated to creating something amazing for your portfolio. Take some time to plan something that will really add value to your portfolio or your work showcase. This will also give you some practice, stretch your skills, improve your confidence in your work, and allow to work on something that you really enjoy.

9. Talk to people in your industry. This can be through a reach out on Twitter, or in the real world. Go out and meet fellow creatives at social events and gatherings or organize your own. Hearing from others and sharing ideas and feedback is a great way to regain and boost passion.

10. Drop the baggage. Often it is in trying to accomplish too much that we lose passion for one particular area. Make it easier for yourself by committing to working on and developing one single area of your work-life, get good at it, work at it, learn about it and passion and drive will grow.