Soulcial Studies

Elephant and Rider (important psychological concept)

"I would pursue my passion if I knew what it was."

We all have at least one, but finding even that one can be very difficult. It took me a considerable amount of introspection to acknowledge that I had a higher-than-average interest for psychology ("the study of the soul"), especially since I was so entrenched in the "maximize profits, minimize costs" mentality of business. A friend recently told me he would drop everything and follow his passion if he only knew what it was. Well, this post's for you, bud. So far, I believe there are five primary methods to discover your passions. I present them to you in my subjective order of effectiveness. The first you're born with, the other four you learn:

1. Natural Bastard:

You're born knowing what your passion is. Plain and simple, and highly envious to others who aren't so lucky (like me). Since he was still in diapers, my older brother always knew he would become either a doctor, a cop, or a pilot. This gave a wonderful sense of security to others about his life, including me, for I knew, even when I was still in diapers, I'd enjoy cheap flights one day. And now I do. Thanks for being a natural, bro!  

2. Introspection:

This is the bread and butter of self-discovery. Know thyself, famously inscribed by the ancient Greeks in the Temple of Apollo, is unfortunately, an underdeveloped skill we share as human beings. It's harder to know ourselves than to know others - this is biological fact, no use fighting it. Rather, engage it. Engage yourself. Analyze your strengths, identify what you naturally gravitate towards (i.e. animals, people, problems, cleaning, whatever), and pick apart complex tasks to discover which aspects call out your name. For example, I loved my management job not because it granted me authority over my employees, but because I was fascinated by discovering their strengths, developing ways to motivate them, and exploring their unique mental processes.

3. Feedback from Others:

Others know ourselves better than we do. Hard to accept right? It's obviously a bit more complicated than a simple sentence can summarize, but it's largely true and highly applicable here. The point is that others are magnificent fountains of new knowledge about ourselves. A simple question such as "What do you think I am best at?" or "What do you think I do better than everyone else?" can reveal a treasure trove of you. It's funny, while I was working on MBA applications, 4 different people mentioned I would be a great psychologist (thanks sis!). And after changing direction to a psychology PhD, others admitted that they never really envisioned me in the business world... ahhhh, if only they had spoken out sooner.

4. Read:
Go to Barnes and Noble (or any bookstore) with zero expectations or ideas. Wander everywhere. Go on auto-pilot and let your unconscious mind run wild. Let it command you to pick up the most interesting books. Skim through the contents, read the back cover, smell the pages, whatever. Just get the overall idea of each book. At the end of the day, buy your favorite 3 or 4 books and then analyze why you chose them. Can you guess which ones I chose WHILE STILL preparing the MBA apps? Linchpin, The Happiness Hypothesis, Narcissism Epidemic, and Psychology Today (mag). Surprise surprise.

5. Career Development Tests:
To me, these tests act like a shotgun blast to finding your passions. In other words, these tests give you a list of say 10 possible career paths for your "type," and among those, at least 1 of them is really you. We humans are too dynamic to be bulls-eyed, but we can definitely be narrowed down. In the MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) my type is ENTP, and possible career paths include: entrepreneur, consultant, psychologist. Booya!

Bottom Line:Whatever you do, don't settle. Even if you don't know your passion; You do have one, really. Be honest and caring with yourself, and search that soul until you find it. Let me assure you, we will ALL benefit from your discovery. If you need to discuss, get in touch.