I’ve realised after sometime that passion and purpose are actually more different than we might think. I personally believe that passion and purpose can usually overlap in some way.But this has made them be seen as maybe interchangeable and difficult to articulate. If we take a moment to understand what they represent separately we can more clarity around what our passion is and what our purpose is.
Which may lead you to better understand what your brands purpose is too. For me passion comes from being creative, thinking creatively and designing something to feel a certain way when you look at it. When I design for clients i’m focused zoned in, fully immersed and am usually not thinking about anything else around me. Kinda like one of those horses with the blinkers on, some may refer it to as deep focus or deep work, whatever you want to call it. Basically I loose track of the hours and feel very focused on whatever I’m creating.This is what I believe to be my passion, I don’t believe there’s really a right or wrong way to think about passion.
But if we can put it into individual terms, It’s probably usually the thing that gives you energy that you’re naturally drawn too. Really what makes you happy. So if you’re unsure what your passion is you might want to think about and ask yourself.
What things you do you actually like to do?
What makes you want to get up in the morning?
What is something that causes you to lose tack of time?
And usually in life I see that our passions can grow and change and we can even develop them further. So really our passion are defined by the what, what we like to do?
Similar concept to Simon Sineks and his golden circle rule. The what is usually the service or product we make. I see thing heavily mirroring our passion. So if our passion is the what, this mean we still need to have a purpose. I see purpose as a way to provide our passion direction and even help us you know stay committed to something. Specially when the going gets tuff and we starting questions.
Why am I doing all this? Or is this even making a difference?
Purpose is the thing that provide us with more drive. To me I see it as a way to give our passion more context other than we just like to be creativity because that not very compelling to someone.I believe that really we have one purpose but even if we have one purpose. We can still have multiple passions therefore different ways in achieving the purpose. Meaning you don’t always have to put your eggs into one basket.
Or feel boxed in If a business is built on a solid purpose your services and products can grow, develop and evolve over time and not confuse what you’re ideal people.
For example that’s why we feel comfortable to buy phones, laptops and tablet from Apple!
So don’t feel like a purpose will box you in actually it might help you be more flexible! To get a good understanding around what your purpose is you have to ask things like
What do you want your legacy to be?
How can you make the world a better place?
Who can you help?
Passion is very easily mixed up with the idea of purpose. I unknowingly thought about them this same way for years. But maybe this way of thinking actually make it harder for people to write purpose statement for their brand. I think they are both very important why have a purpose and not achieve it doing something you love and what have a passion you love but not using it to achieve a bigger purpose with it?
I think over time passion is very easy for us to see and identify . We know when something lights us up and give up joy. The thing to be aware of here, is to not fall into the the trap of thing your passion is your whole purpose. Our purpose is the bigger reason behind why we are using our passion.
Just a little food for thought there, if you unsure about your passion and purpose. I’ve actually found asking the questions i’ve already included in this episode are a great starting point. Which you can refer back to in the show-notes. As well as taking some personality tests, to really understand what motivates and drives you in life. I’ve used 16 personality, enneagram test, even a saboteurs test to see what holds me back most surprise i’m a perfectionist through and through!
Although personality tests aren’t exactly accurate as our experiences in life mould us, and we can change depending on stages we are in life. But I’ve found it to be a helpful place to gain insight and ideas around where we may find purpose and fulfilment. I really hope you enjoyed today episode and find the Distinction between purpose and passion helps you find more clarity in life and writing your purpose statement.>>If you missed last week episode click here!<<