10 ways to start finding your passions as a teenager
When I think of my teenage days, I see a little adolescent with tons of mixed emotions and thoughts about life overall.
This was a problem because when you are a teenager you want to carry out every single idea coming across your mind, but we all know time is limited, especially when you have to focus on school tasks and household chores, and additionally, your mind may be spending time thinking of that boy or girl you feel attracted to.
Because let’s be honest, adolescence is full of energy and hormones traveling throughout your body telling you, “I want this right now.”
With all of this in mind, we can notice that this tremendous power taking over our minds keeps us distracted from important things, for example… our passions.
Sometimes your passion will find you out of the blue, when you least expect it, for that reason is important for you to start being aware of your surroundings and train your senses to be ready.
Lady Diana, for example, Her passion for giving was born not out of the royal family’s tradition of philanthropic work, but of her sincere desire to help. In 1995, she explained to BBC journalist Martin Bashir that she was in a unique position to help—not just because of her status and fame, but because she felt an “affinity” with those who were suffering, as she had suffered from bulimia and anxiety in the years after she married Prince Charles.
Or LEGO’s tragic story when after suffering a terrible loss from a huge fire in the woodworking shop Mr. Ole Kirk Christiansen came up with his greatest idea of producing their iconic and evergreen color plastic bricks.
You never know when you will meet your new passion, and it is important to say that you don’t have to choose only one passion. Explore and question yourself as much as you can instead.
We recently wrote about how to improve your focus and concentration, and that can help us to start stressing the importance of being self-aware and completely focused on what you actually want.
If you are lacking good concentration, you may find it harder to discover what you are passionate about.
Factors that may distract you from finding your passions
-Apathy
Apathy describes an absence of feelings and emotions, this is essentially a state of mind and can become stronger and harmful if you overlook it, in addition, it usually comes with other symptoms and nutritional deficiency.
Start doing more social activities and communicate your problems with people you trust.
-Fear
Maybe fear is the root cause of many other symptoms like apathy and anxiety, and this makes it tough to beat.
But it is very important to be conscious of our fears, so we can face them in order to make them fade away.
You can beat the fear simply by not resisting it, working with a therapist, trying meditation, or practicing some sports.
Remember you can always count on someone, even if it is not your mom, your dad, or an acquaintance, you can find help in many places, trust me, but it is important to raise your hand.
-Anxiety
Anxiety is experienced by everyone, this emotion is a sensation of worry about future scenarios that might happen and certainly, this fact is what makes our mind get lost in uncertainty.
Anxiety disorders are different from anxiety itself, and diagnosed disorders should be addressed by a specialist and proper care. However, many teens, adults, and even children struggle with anxiety from time to time, so it’s important to have some tools to make it a little easier.
You can also try meditation, increase social activities and practice some sports.
Please, don’t let these emotions stop you from finding your passions. We encourage you to follow the next recommendations and see how easy it is to achieve the life you deserve and love.
That said, let’s go over our 10 recommendations on how you can start finding your passions as a teenager.
1. Change your perspective
You may find yourself telling you things like “that is impossible,” “unachievable,” “out of my range,” and similar statements, when in reality, you should be telling yourself, everything is possible.”
When you shift your mind from “No” to “Yes,” you will start noticing that every problem has a solution.
Every angle has different perspectives, and what you think about someone or something can be modified and is actually always flowing, evolving, and changing constantly. Yes, you can do whatever you want to do (as long as it does not harm anyone else).
2. Explore your needs
Why is this important?
Because it helps us recognize our priorities, and our priorities determine and shape our reality significantly.
We all were taught and raised by different people who have different thoughts, living styles, and different needs certainly.
This is crucial during our childhood and gives us the majority of our beliefs, our values, and our deepest dreams.
You might want to explore these needs before you start thinking about your future and your passions, and here are some helpful articles that can give you a better insight: The 6 Human needs and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
3. Discover what you love
You may have listened to this before, and it is no wonder why. This point is key for basically everything in life.
From a very early age, we deliver ourselves to our most natural instincts and desires., This can be approached either from a spiritual or scientific perspective, but both agree on the idea of “what we really want to do” and “what we think we want to do” is totally different and they come from different sources of motivation.
Love has been acknowledged as the engine that moves the world by most people in the world, and this power is essential for us.
How can you find the things you love to do?
It may be easy and difficult at the same time, but here are some good questions to ask yourself:
1.- What did I love when I was a kid?
2.- Would I want to do if money did not exist?
3.- Which things would my friends say I am good at?
4.- Read a University course catalog
5.- Whose career would you most want to emulate?
6.- What do you enjoy doing that you also do well?
These are some simple questions that can give you a better insight into what you love, it is also helpful to have an external idea of who you are for people that surround you and love you, they may give you a better idea of yourself and thus you will be able to better understand who you think you are.
4. Just Chill
I think this point does not require too much effort. Sit down or lay on your bed and think about it for a while.
Besides spending time at your friend’s and on the playground or the nightclub. Where else do you find yourself spending a good amount of time?
Do you often watch the stars alone? Do you search for information without being asked? Do you read a lot just for fun? Do you like writing or creating something useful for you or your family?
Start spotting those places where you feel happy, calm, inspired, or full of love.
Is there any place you relate with good emotions? What do you do there?
5. Spot the patterns
The human brain loves patterns and habits overall, this is a primitive instinct, and it is related to survival.
And even though bad habits can affect our life quality, some other patterns will give you hints of what you tend to do at every emotion or state of mind you experience daily.
A need to travel means you crave new experiences. Gravitating toward a certain author, speaker or businessperson could mean they inspire you. Patterns aren’t coincidences – they’re how our subconscious communicates with us.
6. Look at your fears
This is related to the point mentioned above, but it is important to dive deeper and provide you with major advice and see how you can take advantage of something as enigmatic as fear.
Have you ever thought about quitting something just because you felt.
All of us have experienced fear more than once in our lives and it is completely normal.
Fear is a primitive instinct that prevents us from danger and risks.
However, this feeling can be easily boosted up by our brain if we do not usually teach it how to handle that emotion.
If you feel excitement and fear when you think about going all-in with a certain skill or pastime, that’s a sign it’s your passion.
Here are some good tips to overcome the fear:
1.- Identify your fears
2.- Recognize that fear con work to your advantage
3.- Sit with your fear
4.- Create goals that are Musts
5.- Recognize excuses
6.- Surround yourself with success
7.- Adopt a growth mindset
8.- Find valuable insight in pain
9.- Visualize your goals
10.- Accept that you all fail
7. Open your mind
You might find it tough to keep an open mind.
After all, there’s a certain comfort in being set in your ways.
However, opening your mind to the possibilities of new opportunities, knowledge, adventure, and even relationships could bring greater fulfillment and happiness to your life.
How does opening your mind help you find your passion?
Passions are not reasonable, they belong to the heart and feelings entirely, however, having an open mind will help you connect both sides of your brain.
This will keep you in balance, and even though the balance is not usually a passion’s friend because you know: “heart does not follow rules,” it will give you direction and control, which are very important to build a solid passion, strong enough that you never have to ask yourself one day whether you have taken the right way.
8. Get out of your comfort zone
The importance of taking on new challenges with an open mind will lead you to new atmospheres, new friends, new people!
Have you ever found yourself alone having chaotic thoughts? Maybe you have. I mean, it is completely ok to spend time with yourself, as long as you have great moments, but if you are experiencing more bad moments than good ones, it’s time to get out.
Yes, you have to get out of your comfort zone.
Tips to get out of your comfort zone
1.- Change your routine.
2.- Start a new activity (sports, reading, writing, podcast, acting, singing, something totally new).
3.- Become the leader in one of your social or school activities for your conviction (ask for it if necessary).
4.- Be a volunteer (do something nice for someone).
5.- Get fit (set monthly goals).
6.- Face your fears.
7.- Break your rules (question your routines and change what you don’t like if possible).
These are a few examples of how you can start getting out of your comfort zone, by doing new activities, meeting new people, visiting new places, you will expand your options, and you could find a new passion you would never meet without getting uncomfortable. It takes time and guts, but it is well worth it.
9. Believe in yourself
This is really important – it is curious, but most of the time it is we who stop ourselves from succeeding.
How many times have you sabotaged your own plans because deep down you felt you were not ready or maybe you felt you did not deserve it?
Here is where the internal work gains relevance, do not overlook attending therapy with a psychologist or a specialist you trust to heal your soul and mind.
By doing this, you will be prepared to take on as many passions as you find on your way.
The more you know about yourself, the easier you will discover your actual passions in life (even when you are not in the best mood or have a broken heart).
Believe in yourself.
10. Do the rocking chair test
This point is optional and just a kind suggestion, but we believe it may help you find your passions with some simple questions designed by Tony Robbins.
This test consists of picturing yourself as an old woman or man, sitting on your rocking chair, contemplating a landscape, nearing the end of your life. Look back to where you are right now, struggling with the decision of what to do.
Follow the next steps and reply sincerely:
Step 1 – Ask yourself:
- Will this decision have any meaning to you in the future?
- Will you be proud or ashamed of your decision?
- How will this decision have affected the course of your life?
- How different would your life have been had you made a totally opposite decision?
Step 2 – Now, look back to this moment in your life as if you had not achieved your goal.
Step 3 – Then, imagine yourself having achieved it.
As you take each step, get specific and feel your way through the answers. Experience a difference? Maybe this can be pain that would follow from not taking a chance? Or happiness that would come from accomplishing your goal?
Other questions you can think about when taking the Rocking Chair Test:
- How do I feel about my choices and the life I have lived?
- What are my regrets?
- What do I wish I made time for?
- What do I wish I had tried?
- What if I never made this particular choice? How would I feel? Would my life be different?
- Do I regret not taking the chance? Is it something I would always wonder about?
- Do I feel like something is missing? Is there a sadness or longing?
- Is there a great pride and comfort of having made that decision?
- What if I just stayed in my job, would I regret not taking the chance to explore my options when I was younger?
- What if I didn’t at least try to follow my dreams, would it be something that I would always look back upon and wonder, what if…?
- What would I wish I could tell my younger self, if I could make the choice again?
Use this tool as a shot of courage to go for something that you really want out of life.
What is currently standing in your way to achieving the happy feeling in the rocking chair?
Source of information here.
AND, Before the end of this article, we would love to share some reflexive quotes from our recent guest Aurora Meneghello at our podcast “The 13th Grade”. We think you will find them very helpful during your transition to the path of your passions.
1. “What you need to do is get into your body, feel your body, feel your feet on the floor, feel the tension when you hold it and release it, and don’t get caught up in those thoughts”.
2. “Envision yourself 20-30 years later and look back so you have the perspective that you have a long road ahead, and one year seems like a long time when its that one year you are going through but in the big scheme of things, its nothing”
3. “When I was looking for career advice, I found things that basically fit in two buckets; there was the bucket of – You need to go back to school, get an MBA, have a network of this many people, you know everything outside focused and really really overwhelming. And then there was the other bucket, the meditate your way to the million-dollar bucket as I like call it… still working on that part.
So I found that the work I ended up having to do myself was much much deeper”.
Aurora Meneghello is the Founder of Repurpose Your Purpose, a program to change careers. Aurora works with individuals who want to live a life of purpose, wholeness, and interconnection.
If you want to find more joyful and interesting audio content, please visit our Spotify channel
Conclusions
In the end, what we want is for you to be happy. Because happiness is the only way to true success.
We encourage you to follow your deepest desires, the ones that come from your heart.
The modern world is speeding faster every time, and this is pushing humankind to accelerate as well.
Take your time, there is no hurry. You will see that calmness is one of the best states of the mind you can experience.
There is too much noise around, but feel free to ask for help, for a piece of advice, and help others when you can.
Become a better person, become the best version of yourself and I promise you will go straight to your passions and consequently to happiness.
Do not doubt yourself, as we have mentioned before: “Everything is possible.”
And well, we have reached the end of this post. We really appreciate your time reading. Tell us if you have enjoyed it.
Have you applied any tips in the past or will apply some? We are excited to hear from you!
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