3048: You Don’t Find Your Passion in Reflection, It Finds You in Action by Dr. Kelly Flanagan on Doing What You Love

[00:00:00] This is Optimal Living Daily Episode 3048. You don't find your passion in reflection, it finds you in action by Dr. Kelly Flanagan of Dr. KellyFlanagan.com and I'm Justin Malik, your very own personal narrator. I read to you every single day of the year so that you

[00:00:18] don't have to go find blogs and articles yourself all in an effort to make your and my days just a little bit better. So with that, let's get right to it and continue optimizing

[00:00:30] your life. You don't find your passion in reflection, it finds you in action by Dr. Kelly Flanagan of Dr. KellyFlanagan.com. My oldest son, Aidan is 16 and last weekend he did something that gives me great hope for his life. Actually, he did several things. They

[00:00:54] had nothing to do with his GPA nor his SAT scores nor his college resume. They probably won't have anything to do with his ultimate career and they didn't give me hope because he was succeeding at something, they gave me hope because he was trying something and

[00:01:10] working at something. In other words, he was doing what it takes to fumble and stumble his way toward a meaningful life. You don't find your passion and then start living, you start living and then eventually on some distant day, you get a glimpse of your passion in

[00:01:31] the rear view mirror. There's a paralyzing debilitating myth going around amongst our young people that you can't really get started on your journey until you have found your passion and you know exactly where that journey will take you. There's

[00:01:45] an entire industry, books and conferences and summits and master classes built around selling the formula for finding your passion so you can get on with living your best life. This industry sees a need and tries to meet it. That's a good thing. I have no problem

[00:02:03] with its existence. I have a problem with its premise. I have a problem with the idea that the finding comes before the living. When I was 8-years age, I wanted to be a lawyer

[00:02:16] like Tom Cruise and a few good men. In hindsight, this interest reflected some passion for ideas and persuasion. However, after a psychology course introduced me to the wonder and mysteries of the mind, I abandoned law and declared my major at the University of Illinois to

[00:02:33] be psychology. While at Illinois though, my interest shifted from our brains to our relationships. I joined a marriage research lab where I was surprised by a passion for science. So I applied to doctoral programs in clinical psychology. I thought I wanted

[00:02:50] to stay at Illinois for graduate school. The fates sent me to Penn State. Life will close doors on you. It's not a failure. It's an opportunity to find out what else

[00:03:03] you're here to do. I met my wife on day one at Penn State, and for a year or two my passion for relationships was focused entirely on her. Within 2 years we were married, and within 2 more years we were parents. That was 16 years ago. For 16 years becoming a better

[00:03:22] dad has been a passion of mine. In graduate school my passion for science proved temporary. It helped me find my wife, but it wasn't going to help me find a career, and it was

[00:03:32] replaced with a passion for therapy. I decided all I wanted to do for the rest of my life was sit in a room with one or two people and talk about how to improve their

[00:03:43] lives. I did this for more than a decade and it remains a passion of mine, but there are always other passions lurking neglected in the wings. The finding of our passions doesn't happen once, it's an ongoing event. For years I repeatedly pushed my passion for

[00:04:02] creating things back into the depths. A few years ago I stopped pushing and started a blog. My passion for writing grew. I became passionate about publishing a book. It was grueling. I didn't love every moment of it, but that's okay. My passion isn't bliss. It's

[00:04:20] something you're so extravagantly fond of doing, you'd be willing to suffer for it if necessary. After publishing the book I started to get invitations to speak to groups and I discovered a passion

[00:04:32] for that as well. The kid who once wanted to be a prosecuting attorney now speaks about how to live lovable and love your life. Finding your passion is not about having an epiphany, it's about having experiences. It's about trying the next most obvious thing even when that thing

[00:04:52] isn't very obvious at all. It's about getting into the game and learning from the wins and losses. It's not about shaping the future, it's about discerning the shape of your past. These days

[00:05:04] when I look back at my journey I have more clarity than ever about my core passion, my life's mission statement if you will. I'm passionate about speaking in the tender voice

[00:05:14] of a father so that people who hear me know they are worthy. In the rearview mirror you see that your passion is less about what you do and more about how you were made to be. I get to practice

[00:05:29] this passion for tenderness as a husband and as a father and a practice owner and a therapist and a writer and a speaker and a youth soccer coach and a customer in the checkout line. It's

[00:05:43] terribly ordinary and yet totally meaningful to me and something I can be and everything I do. It's not static, it too is always evolving every time I try something new work at it

[00:05:57] and learn from it. Last weekend Aidan played one of the leads in his sophomore fall play and afterward his castmates honored him with the Best Actor Award. It wasn't the success of it

[00:06:09] that gave me hope for him, the odds that Aidan makes a career of acting are not high but he's trying. He's noticing what he wants to do and he's working at it and in the work he's

[00:06:21] learning about himself, where he finds meaning and where he doesn't. The morning after Aidan's opening night he awoke to more good news. This fall he and five friends have with no financial or logistical help from anyone else launched their own streetwear company and went live on

[00:06:39] Friday afternoon hours before Aidan went on stage and within 24 hours the company was already in the black. I'm not hopeful for Aidan because of the numbers, I'm hopeful because he's trying the next best thing he can think of, he's working at it and he's learning from it.

[00:06:57] We don't find our passions in reflection, they find us in action. What is the next most obvious thing that you'd like to try with your one ordinary fleeting and precious life? What do

[00:07:10] you want to work at? What do you want to learn from? What are you waiting for? If it's guarantees or certainty or destination, you'll wait forever. Get started, do the next best thing, then eventually

[00:07:26] someday you'll find your passion when you glimpse it in the rearview mirror. You just listen to the post titled, You Don't Find Your Passion in Reflection, It Finds You in Action by Dr. Kelly Flanigan of Dr.KellyFlanigan.com and I'll be right back with my commentary.

[00:07:48] Thank you to Dr. Kelly. I can definitely relate to this personally. When I was in elementary school, I wanted to be a pediatrician, my mom remembers that well. When I discovered music,

[00:08:00] that's all I wanted to do for quite a while until I realized that the management of the band was sometimes actually more fun to me than writing new songs, for example. I still enjoyed

[00:08:11] playing, but I was more and more interested in the marketing of the band, the accounting as boring as that sounds, the merchandise, the website, all the pieces that are often an afterthought to the music

[00:08:25] itself. The next thing I knew, I was working to make a website to help bands manage their products online, and I fell in love with entrepreneurship. That was probably 15, 20 years ago. Throughout

[00:08:39] that time, I don't think I was necessarily looking for my passion or calling. I was just doing the stuff that I was interested in, just like Aiden. I do remember taking quizzes and reading books like

[00:08:50] Strength Finder to try to help figure out what I should major in and what I could do in a corporate setting, but through all that, the experience itself is what made me figure it all out. So I

[00:09:03] think this is great advice, especially for the younger crowd. And with that, have a great weekend if you're listening in real time. Thank you for being here, and I'll see you tomorrow where your optimal life awaits.