Unlock Your Passions: 5 Fun Questions To Know Yourself Better

What if your social media habits could unlock your life's greatest passions? Join me on this episode as we explore how everyday behaviors can lead you to self-discovery and fulfillment. 

I'll share with you five powerful questions that can help you identify your true passions and illustrate how your social media habits, TV show preferences, vacation choices, internet rabbit holes, and shower thoughts can reveal your deepest interests and passions.

Whether you're looking to enrich your career, discover new hobbies, or go on meaningful projects, this episode reveals how small reflections can lead to big changes.

What you'll learn in this episode:  

• Five key questions to help you unlock your passions
• Techniques to study your unconscious behaviors for self-discovery
• How your preferences reflect your personality
• Ways to turn everyday habits and interests into a purpose-driven life
• Introduction to the upcoming Six Pillars of Purposeful Living program

Click HERE to watch this video to learn The 3 Things to Avoid When Reading Self-Help Books

How to Connect with Lara:

Web: www.larajohnsoncoaching.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/j.lara.johnson/

Facebook: www.facebook.com/larajohnsoncoaching

Work with Lara: www.larajohnsoncoaching.com/work-with-me/

Transcript

Welcome to the Mom On Purpose podcast. I'm Lara Johnson and I'm here to teach you how to get out of your funk, be in a better mood, play more with your kids, manage your home better, get your to-do list done and live your life on purpose. With my proven method, this is possible for you, and I'll show you how. 

You're not alone anymore. We're in this together.

Hello and welcome! Here we are today for another episode of Mom On Purpose podcast. Today, we are talking about unlocking your passions, and this is something I find so fun that I get to do with my clients. It really is one of the best parts of my job, because I get to do what I absolutely love in helping them discover more about themselves. 

But I know that not everybody is able to work with me one-on-one, which is what I love about this podcast so much is that you still get the same information that I'm teaching my clients, but I wanted to take it one step further, which is why I'm creating the Six Pillars of Purposeful Living Program that I will be launching soon, and I cannot wait to offer it to you, because it's the six pillars that I am teaching my clients so that they are creating results in their lives to live on purpose and to live with purpose. 

These are the very steps that I want you to have, so that you feel like, when you wake up in the morning, you are living your highest potential, you are fulfilled and joyful, you're accomplishing things and you feel like your home and your family are supporting those dreams as well. So be on the lookout for that. That's the six pillars of purposeful living program, and that will be coming soon. But for today, let's go ahead and unlock your passion. So, I've got five fun questions for you to get to know yourself better, and I like these questions because they've led me to do a lot of self-exploration. 

I think sometimes when we ask ourselves, you know, what are our strengths, what are our weaknesses, who am I, what do I do? It can feel kind of rote where it doesn't really provide a lot of insights. It's like you're having to dig for the insights. One of the best ways that I have found with my clients and with myself, to gain understanding is to actually study my behaviors. When my logical brain is turned off, like when I've gone back to like my unconscious behaviors I'm doing. 

When I step back and study those, it's actually really fascinating because then I start to see common threads that are all connected to each other and can lead me down some really cool paths. So, some of these questions that I'm going to ask in just a second may lead you to a more fulfilling career. It may lead you to a new hobby or some kind of side project or something you want to volunteer in. But also know that these questions can lead you anywhere that you want to go Like. It might even be a new recipe you want to try. 

Over you know a short time when I asked myself these questions and some of the things that I saw, it led me to just a year long. I don't know if game's the right word, not really even journey, but it was more of just something fun I wanted to do. I wasn't traveling a lot at the time; my kids were little, and I wanted to have a better understanding of different cultures and people all around the world. 

Even though I live in a very suburban, mostly Caucasian, you know, medium to higher income level Christian community. I wanted to really step outside of that with my little kids and schedule. I couldn't travel. 

So, asking myself these questions, I decided for a year I guess it probably ended up a year and a half each month I would read a book and I would go through and research about the author and about the story and I could only read books from authors that had a different religion, a different socioeconomic status, a different culture, skin color. 

You know, something that was different than just my small little world, because a writer can take their experience or that of someone else and expound upon it, and so I really wanted to dive into other cultures through a writer's perspective, and it was a beautiful, really fun experience. But again, all of that came from me studying myself and seeing where some of those gaps were that I wanted to fill, but also what are just some of my passions and some of my interests. So, let's dive into these questions. 

So, the first one I believe that social media can get a really bad rap, but in this situation, I want you to see it for the good. I want you to think about what is your social media feed filled with. Whichever way you do social media, just think about what are the things that you stop and read. Maybe it's the kind of articles that you send on. Maybe it's things that you're drawn to, maybe images, it might be language, it might even be the music. Now, sometimes, when you're scrolling through social media again, it's very unconscious and that's fine. 

Okay, we all need time to veg. We all need time for our brain to be offline for a little bit. This might be a great way for you to do that, but I want you, just for a minute, before you go into that veg state, just look at a very high level about your feed. It was fascinating because I had a client. She is a home builder and she loves filling her feed with just beautiful home designs that helps her bring inspiration in. 

I look at my cute 10-year-old daughter and she loves learning organizational hacks for the house and for traveling. So anytime we go to travel she's like mom, let's do this. It's like so outside of, like where my brain is, but it's super cute, like those. Not that she's on social media, but that's the kind of stuff that interests her. 

Okay, so just think about that. I love animals, like animals are a big deal, so my feed has a lot of funny animal videos I also have. I love learning about the good things that are happening in the world. So, there's a site I think it's called the good news movement or something. I read almost every single one of their posts or watch their videos just because it's fun. I like it. Okay, so go back, study what your social media feed is filled with and see if you can see any common patterns that are there. 

Question two, what are the shows you are drawn to? Shows or movies. We'll use that interchangeably, I guess just you know some kind of thing that you are watching. Maybe you do watch more on YouTube, or you know the streaming service, whatever that might be. Now I noticed for myself that I like a lot of documentaries, but I like the ones where there's some kind of cult.

 Documentaries, but I like the ones where there's some kind of cult. I know that sounds so like. I'm very fascinated by cults for some reason. I'm not sure why. It's really understanding the mindset behind all of it. It's very interesting to me how people can come into these cults but also how they can leave them. 

For my husband he gets really fascinated by main characters that aren't the quote unquote traditional good guy, where their main characters are more of a gray person, not good or bad, but more in that gray area where you can see their flaws and you want them to get better. It's very interesting to me. 

So that's not always my interest, but my interest is hanging out with my husband so by default I watch some of these shows. My sister and I always laugh. I think had my sister known about D&D, which is Dungeons and Dragons, that definitely would have been her vibe as a teenager. I just don't think she knew about it. But she is always one that wants a lot of dragons, time period pieces where there's some kind of violence. It's not really my genre at all, but I also. For me, I like shows that give some kind of background as to where these people are coming from. 

Maybe they're flashbacks to when they're kids, or some kind of background as to where these people are coming from. Maybe they're flashbacks to when they're kids, or some kind of background information. Those are really fascinating to me because I always want to know where people come from and why they make decisions like they do. Okay, so that's just something to think about. 

What shows or movies are you drawn to? Number three, what vacations do you love? Now, I know that there's different vacations for different times of life and season, so I understand that, but I want you to think at a high level here. There may be, overall, you prefer vacations that are quiet and relaxing. Maybe you don't even care about the location you go to. 

You just care about the people that you're with, or if you're someone that likes to have a very scheduled time when you're on vacation. Maybe there's a certain kind of atmosphere that you enjoy. Maybe it's international travel, maybe it's exploring historical sites, like just think about that for yourself. What are the kinds of vacations you love? 

Now I know for me my husband and I joke that quote unquote vacation Lara comes out. She has a very different speed of life and I think that's my normal state that I can't live in, because I am a mom of four children, and I own a business and we have a home and all the things that requires my life to be much more scheduled. But I think vacation Lara is like my higher self. 

But I think vacation Lara is like my higher self. She's like really chill and sometimes she'll get up and get ready, sometimes she just goes with the flow, sometimes she takes a nap at random times, whereas my husband will always be the one that's scheduled. So, we've had to really come into balance. But what I have learned about this is so much about myself. 

At home I have to have days where vacation Laura can kind of be in a normal work week, because otherwise my body does start to shut down. So even though I live a very productive, very scheduled life, I still give space for vacation Laura to come out on a traditional week, because that's where I find the most joy and rejuvenation. 

All right, number four, what rabbit holes do you like to go down? When you are randomly scrolling the internet and you are, you find yourself either diving into the news or some kind of article that led you to this article, or you're reading about some celebrity, or you know. Whatever it is that you're reading about, I want you to look at a very high level as to why you're reading it. 

What was it that piqued your interest? Was it because you liked a little drama and you wanted to read some gossip stuff about a celebrity? No judgment here. Okay, I do it all the time. For me, if I watch something historical fiction or I watch some kind of documentary, I love then going down that rabbit hole. So, I like having a show or movie or something to paint a picture and then I go and study it. 

For my husband, I find that his rabbit holes are often based on his interest for the time. Like when he was prepping to run a marathon, I'm pretty sure he read the entire internet about running. So, it just kind of makes me laugh that that's how he finds his rabbit holes is. It's very interest-based. 

You know, there was a time in my life where every time I went down a rabbit hole, I always made my way back to job postings. For some reason, I would read so many job postings, but what I found at the time was that I really had a desire to work and that there was something that was calling me to more like God knew that my heart and soul needed something more than what I was currently doing, and that I had specific gifts and talents that I wanted to share. 

But that came from me really studying how. I was always looking at job postings and thinking, oh, can I apply for this one? I don't have the skill set. How would I make my resume? All of that? Okay, the internal dialogue you probably don't care about. That's always running in my head but being able to study those rabbit holes is where I learned so much about myself, so I wanted to invite you to do the same. 

All right, the fifth one. This is one that can give us so much information about our internal cells, and that is what does your brain think about when you're in the shower or when you're blow drying your hair? For some reason, something about the noise of the shower or the blow dryer allows our brain to enter another realm. 

Now, oftentimes, there are kids around, so we may not be able to go into this space as often as maybe you have in the past. That's okay. Just notice that if you do have a chance to go there, what does your brain like thinking about? 

So, for me, one of the things in the past that I noticed was I was having conversations with people saying things that I really wanted to say to them, that I wish I could have said in the moment. So, I'm much more of a slow processor. I'm not very quick witted. 

So, when someone says something to me and I want to respond back, most of the time I don't have anything to respond back with right away. Now that is fine. I mean, I've dealt with it my whole life, that's okay. 

But what I found was that then I would go in the shower, like next time I showered, and all these conversations would come out and I would start having conversations with people. So, what I learned is that for the most part, I wasn't speaking my mind and that I would never go back to a conversation because it was days ago. 

So, during that process, what I learned about myself was that I was not being upfront with who I am, what I believe and what I wanted to say front with who I am, what I believe and what I wanted to say, and I learned that because I started studying the conversations I was having in my brain, what my brain was thinking about when I was in the shower. 

So, I want you to think about that for yourself. Do you have conversations with people in the shower when you're blow drying your hair? 

Maybe it's just total chaos. 

Maybe your brain is jumping about all the different things you need to do that day because maybe your brain prefers to have much more control or be more scheduled than you are or be freer than you are. 

Maybe you're thinking about being on stage or writing a book, but maybe you're just trying to relax and soak in the hot water because you're feeling a desire to be more grounded in your life. When you study what your brain thinks about in the shower or when you're blow drying your hair, you will get valuable insights as to where you are right now in your life. All right, so there you have it. 

Five very fun ways, fun questions that you can use to get to know yourself better, so that you can further unlock your passions. Why don't you go down, hit the button to send this to someone that you know, because I know there is someone else having some kind of conversation with themselves in the shower and they want to know how they can use that to their benefit. 

Have a wonderful week. See you next time. 

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