The True Passion Test - What's Right in Front of You?

Last year at my niece's graduation, the keynote speaker was sharing how she had veered from her degree of psychology to her current position as editor of Food Day magazine. One day she was lamenting to her husband how she "just didn't know what her passion was" as she stood looking at a ceiling-to-floor bookshelf filled with cookbooks and other food-related tomes. He had to point out the irony before she was able to see what was right in front of her.

What most of us do early in life is look at the money trail to help us decide the direction of our careers. Then, along about mid-life, we realize that the passion is missing from the picture and start to look for what we can do differently to fill that void. This might not seem related to writing, but what I've experienced is that the more passionate you are about what you are writing, the better the result. So if you are looking for what you really want to be writing about, take a look at your bookshelf. Where is your interest and how would you develop that into writing that stimulates both you and your reader?

If you still have a question about what your true passion is, I highly recommend the book by Janet Atwood, The Passion Test. She is one of the subjects of the video, The Quest for Success, on which I'm co-writing the book that will accompany the show. In the research I'm doing, I have worked through her exercises and had some surprising results. What I had long denied as a possible course in my life is now being revealed as my true passion. I've still got a ways to go before I finish the book, but I'll give a bit of foreshadowing, I've already started to develop a new website that will reflect what I've learned.

Stay tuned for more on this in the coming weeks!

Have a fabulous day!
Marilyn

Write On!