Thank you for joining today’s Accelerate Your Performance Podcast. And thank you for having a desire to be your best at work and helping your organization achieve success. This podcast focuses on tactical actions to improve workplace culture and these tactics align to our Nine Principles® for Organizational Excellence.
Today, we’ll focus on “reigniting your passion.”
Last week we thought about what it means to lose our passion and how that occurs. Today, let’s focus on how we can reignite our passion and why it’s important for us to keep our flame burning.
Remember from last week, I spoke of my childhood tennis story that resulted in my decision to give away the tennis sport in exchange for another sport.
What I learned throughout life is that although I made this decision, I still had passion for the sport of tennis.
Remember, I longed for being coached by someone. Now I had an opportunity to be that coach I always wanted for myself. My goal was for no player to have that same feeling I did – I was there to help young people grow their passion for tennis. Looking back, I hope my players felt I did that with them. I sure wanted to.
I made a few decisions. First, I would not cut anyone from the team. And, I would have an A squad (a competitive one) and a B squad (a practice one). I would provide structure for each squad and ensure I communicated when I would spend my time with both and why. I also communicated to the B squad that I would spend more time with the A squad who had team members competing, and that I valued the B players because they were striving to get better to make it to A. I wanted them to know why I balanced my time with the two teams as I did. I also did not want them to feel less than. I wanted them to feel part of the team.
When I wasn’t spending time with the B squad, at times, I asked them to help me with drills for the A squad so we would be a collective team. We huddled together and had our assignments at our afternoon practices. We worked as a collective team – that was the expectation.
And, we raised the money so everyone could travel to matches. We were one team. And during competitive play we all had jobs, even if one of them was to cheer on their teammates.
Boy, did I love coaching tennis. In hindsight, I realize I was most likely a better coach than a player. In two years, we shifted from near last place to third place. I was fortunate to win a coach award that year – not because we were the best team or I was the best coach. It was an award voted on by other coaches. They recognized the difference in our team – we were better players, won some unexpected matches, lost some close ones, and played as a team.
Looking back, what did I learn about reigniting passion? Unknown to me at the time, I found new meaning. The new meaning was the value of being a coach and realizing success with my players. They helped me, and I think I helped them.
Shifting from player to coach added new meaning to something I was passionate about. This new meaning turned into something better than I expected. I was able to give back to young people what I did not have the opportunity to receive at their age. I didn’t set out with that in mind. Making a slight shift paid great dividends.
So, let’s take a deeper dive on how making new meaning reignites passion.
When we think about getting rid of weariness and hopelessness, doesn’t it seem at times like we are waiting for a magical feeling to appear. It’s like ... Wait for it…Wait for it.. Wait for it… ? And it never comes or if it does we are disappointed with what we see or feel.
Here’s the difficult truth. We have to understand that passion comes from within. When we don’t understand this, we wait for the world to bring passion to us rather than cultivating it ourselves.
I read something I loved by a guest blogger, Lewis Howes, for Entrepreneur.com. It reminded me of how we may tend to get lost while patiently waiting for something to happen.
He wrote, “We are passive, waiting to be entertained. We seem to have forgotten that we are the ones who are in charge of hosting the parties and creating experiences in our lives. Unless we bring something to the table, who would want to invite us to theirs?”
Here’s how what Lewis Howes wrote applies to the tennis story. When I was young and passionate about tennis I did not have the fortitude to understand how to control my own destiny. However, in my 20s I felt connected enough to tennis to change the meaning from player to coach. Through my newly found passion for coaching young people, I brought something to the party and the guests gave me a lifetime of memories.
And most important, this new lifetime passion turned into being a good coach that now influences my commitment on being the best leader with others. Most of my professional life has afforded me opportunities to do so. That’s an awesome responsibility.
Remember your deepest life passions. I believe what we are passionate about stays with us; it simply may not have the destined path we envisioned.
This week do one important thing for you. Take time to think about what you’re passionate about, what motivates you, what energizes you. Are you living it? If yes, how do you keep doing so? If not, how can you create new meaning to reignite your passion?
All of us are energized by something. It may simply need to be refreshed with something new to be reignited.
Thank you for tuning in to Accelerate Your Performance. I look forward to connecting with you on our next Podcast where we will focus on “Can You Fix My Culture?” Have a great week.