How to Actually Find Your Passion in Your 20's

Finding your passion is a gradual process that happens through curiosity, exploration, and trial and error. Not a sudden lightbulb moment that defines your identity overnight. 

Most people don't wake up knowing exactly what they're meant to do, and that's completely normal as your twenties are meant to be a decade of figuring it out rather than knowing it all! 

If you are trying to figure out what your 'thing' is or want to have something in your life that grounds you, this episode is for you!

Enjoy!

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:17

Hey guys, and welcome back to another episode of the 20s Survivor Guide. This is your host, emily Astley. I'm so excited for today's episode because this is a topic which I feel like could really help a lot of you. We're talking about how you can actually find your passion, even if you have absolutely no idea where to start, even if you don't think you have one, even if you have one already. This episode is for you. You so you might see your friends or people on social media who have their thing, their thing that just identifies them, or you tie that with their identity.

Speaker 1 0:50

There are so many people who have come on podcasts and I've listened to them and they have said I just woke up and I was meant to be a writer, or I was meant to be an editor, or I just was meant to be a doctor and I was meant to help people, and that's amazing. But that's also not reality, because I haven't woken up and thought I'm meant to be this in any point in my life, and I think that is very normal too. But because we see people who do have their passion figured out, you can easily feel lost and confused why you don't have that light bulb moment. But I'm going to be honest with you guys most of the time, a passion isn't something that you just wake up with. It's something that you discover, and that is normally a discovery that happens in your 20s. Let's start with defining what the hell a passion is. A passion is something you feel deeply interested in or excited about. It's something that energizes you and motivates you, and it often refers to a strong emotional connection to an activity, an idea, a cause or a subject that brings you joy, fulfillment or purpose. That is pretty much what a passion is. And how do you get a passion? Through doing things, being curious, messing up, being surprised about things, and it's a very slow build and it happens over time. It doesn't happen within a day and that all sounds great. But if you're sitting here listening and thinking I don't really have my passion yet, or I don't really have the exact passion I want yet, it's not big enough I don't blame you, because there's a lot of pressure around this word, because passion is now tied to your job, your purpose, your identity, and it then begins to be something that feels quite heavy, when in reality, it's supposed to be something that is very grounding. So you know what I'm gonna help you guys because I have thought about this a lot and I've actually done a lot of research. So I'm going to help you guys get a little bit closer in figuring out what your passion is and helping you understand the word. So, without further ado, let's get into the episode.

Speaker 1 3:08

Okay, as we know, we tend to get real on the 20 survival guide. This is something that I'm incapable of not doing, so we're going to start with talking about what a passion actually looks like, because a passion isn't always glamorous, it's not always something that you see on social media and and takes over someone's life in the most beautiful way, the most enthralling way, and they just give their lives to helping others. Sometimes, having a passion can lead to spending hours and hours on something that no one asks you to do, and then you can begin to feel unproductive because it's something you do for yourself, but you might not count it as being productive because you're not getting your quote-unquote work done. It's getting obsessed with an idea, a topic or a creative project. It can be feeling energised by helping others. In a certain way, it can be wanting to learn everything about something, even if you're not good at it.

Speaker 1 3:56

Yet A passion tends to be something that is hidden, something that's small, and then eventually turns up to be something that is hidden, something that's small and then eventually turns up to be something that's a big deal to you. But it doesn't always start to be like this huge big deal. For example, you could be always finding yourself giving advice to friends. This could be just like therapising them, coaching them. You could find yourself enjoying editing videos for fun, and this could lead into a career in filmmaking or having your own blog or content creation. You could be obsessed with skincare routines, and this could lead to a career in beauty, in branding, in content creation.

Seven Ways to Find Your Passion

Speaker 1 4:32

And the main theme in all of this is that your passion tends to be something that's disguised in curiosity. You're curious about something, but you didn't realise that it was something that could be metastasised into a passion. So if you're still thinking, emily, I get that, but I really don't know what my passion is, and I wanted to listen to this episode because I thought you're going to help me find one. I absolutely am. We're going to talk about seven actionable ways that you can use in order to help find your passion, and the good news is that you can do these seven things right now. You can do them in a day. So number one number one is giving yourself permission to explore without pressure. This is a huge one, because a lot of people I hear when they're trying to find a passion, think that it has to be productive, in a sense, that it has to lead to your career, or it has to lead to a side hustle. It has to be something you can make money out of. That's absolutely not true.

Speaker 1 5:38

A passion should purely be based on enjoyment before anything else. If it leads to that, that's just a bonus. But a passion should be something that you can enjoy. It doesn't need to be a hustle, it doesn't need to be a side hustle. You should go and try things just because it could be fun, like taking a pottery class, like going to a book club, writing a blog. It's to follow what you actually enjoy, what gives you energy in life, rather than to monetize it. That's why I believe it's really hard to have your career as your passion, because when you do something that you love so deeply as your career, it tends to lose that enjoyment a little bit, because your passion then becomes work and it just gets complicated and messy. So your passion tends to not be your career. If you are thinking that it is, it might be, but most often it's not and it's something else.

Speaker 1 6:29

Number two write down what energizes you versus what drains you. This is a really good exercise and you could literally do it right now. You could be commuting, you could be at home, you could be at work on a break. It takes two seconds to do, or you could even do this once a week and just take five minutes and write a list. What gave me energy this week, what felt like a chore this week, even if I was good at it Emphasis on good at it, because that's quite important. Patterns start to emerge and you might be good at something, but you might not enjoy it. It might not be your passion.

Speaker 1 7:05

Number three notice what you actually talk about on the day-to-day. So what do your friends come to you for? Because it's really common that they're coming to you for something because they trust you or they know that you're good at it, and that could be advice, that could be fashion advice, that could be therapy, that could be therapy. That could be anything, and it's also really flattering when they come to you for something, but they'll tend to come to you for something more often than anything else, and that's something that you need to tune into and pay attention to, because there's a reason for that, or this could even be what do you bring up in conversations without even realizing it. Your passion could be hiding in conversations, like it could be there in plain sight and you could be talking about it all the time. You could get into debates with your friends about it and you get really passionate and heated about it, but you don't quite realize yet that it is a passion of yours.

Speaker 1 8:01

Number four try new things and be okay with quitting them. There's just so much taboo around quitting at the moment, and I think it's really important to understand that quitting can be a really good thing. Sometimes it can be needed in your life, it can be necessary for growth, and you're allowed to try new things, not like them and give them up. That's purely how you figure out what your passion is trial and error. So you could try a sport because you thought it might be something that you would be good at or interested in and you might hate it, and then you can give it up, you can toss it to the side. That's a luxury of being in a free country like you can do whatever you want. No one is tying you to that. So remember that your passion should always be enjoyable, and quitting is not failure. It's actually kind of like a form of feedback in this situation of your trial and erroring, where you're like okay, this is feedback that I didn't like it, like my brain is giving me feedback this isn't my passion. Let's move on to something else, in a different direction. Let's reframe quitting and think about it like this every time you say no, every time you quit, you're closer to saying yes. You're closer to finding your passion and finding what is right for you. So one thing you could do is you can make a try list and that sounds really weird, but make a list of things that you want to try and, again, this takes literally two seconds just jot down things that you think you could be interested in trying in order to find your passion. So again, this could be a sport, this could literally be reading, this could be any type of hobby, it could be something active, it could be something sedentary, something that you think you want to try, and then, slowly but slowly, throughout the year, you can cross them off. But there's not supposed to be any pressure in that. It's supposed to be really light-hearted. It's not like, okay, now if I don't cross off all those things this year, then I have failed. It's just collecting information on whether this thing is right for you or not.

Speaker 1 9:58

Number five reflect on what you loved doing when you were little, like like when you were a kid, before you had to worry about school and grades and money, like what would make you excited, what would be your after school hobby. This could be something before your parents even dragged you into it. This could be something you found by yourself, like you could have been really good at drawing. You could have been really good at talking to people when you were younger and a lot of people had their passions but they dropped it when they went to high school, when they went to university, because socializing took priority and they didn't have time and and that's normal because grades and your education just naturally comes first. But it's really sad because then when you finish education, you have that spare time after work and you realize I actually don't have that thing anymore which used to ground me and which made me really happy when I was younger. So trying to reflect. When you're a kid, what did you enjoy doing before anyone told you what was right for you? That's a really big indicator.

Speaker 1 10:58

Number six finding expanders. This is another one of those weird things that you're probably like, Emily. What the hell is that? I'm gonna tell you? Expanders are specific people whose lives, energy, their jobs. They inspire you. Even if they're nothing like you. They inspire you, however that may be. It could be someone you look up to. It could be a friend. It could be a role model. It could be someone you look up to. It could be a friend. It could be a role model. It could be someone you've never met in your life. What you should do is you should follow them. You should listen to their podcasts, listen to the episodes that they're on, read their work, read any articles about them. What this does is it helps you see how they got there, what they're doing, what they're like. It's a great way to get a better sense of what they and you can see if you can slot yourself into that position and think would I enjoy that just as much as they do? Also, it's just good to read and listen to podcasts about people that inspire you, because it really broadens your horizons on things that you might not do yet or you might not have in common with, but they just give you some sort of energy that makes you feel inspired.

Being Multi-Passionate Is a Strength

Speaker 1 12:08

Number seven this is the last one, guys, and probably the most important one of all, and that is stop waiting for confidence first. I'm going to repeat that Stop waiting for confidence first. Stop waiting for confidence to come. It's just going to magically come, and then you're going to have the confidence to do the thing that you've been aspiring to do, or to find your passion, that you've been aspiring to find. Breaking news, guys. Your confidence is just not gonna come. It comes from doing things realizing what you're good at, realizing what you're not good at. You're not gonna get a sudden instant boost of confidence by sitting on the couch. It's just not gonna happen. Here's something you probably hear a lot, which might sound kind of cliche, but you don't need to feel ready to start with this podcast.

Speaker 1 12:55

I absolutely didn't feel ready to start. I had no idea what I was doing and if you listen back to the earlier episodes, that audio is probably really crackly and the amount of technical issues I had was just literally so bad. It was like hell. It was hell and I had not planned enough, because most people when they start podcasts now, they normally film about 10 episodes 10 to 20 episodes before they even launch their podcast, so that they have time to create episodes weekly and they don't run out of time. I never did that because I wasn't ready to start. I just started and I learned along the way and I'd be up at two in the morning. My friends would be asleep at uni and they'd be hearing things, me going to the bathroom and be like what is she doing at this hour? Like I had lectures the next day but I just wasn't ready to start. But I did it and I just kept up.

Speaker 1 13:49

In the beginning I was like treading water and now I'm really grateful that I did. I started and it was super messy. I was a bit naive but I was really anxious about how people were going to perceive it. But you know what? That's how most people start. The confidence comes along the way and I look back at these episodes and I'm like oh my gosh, like we've blossomed, we've changed, we've got so much better. So confidence comes when you start, not before you start. Now you might be thinking about those seven points and be like okay, that's great and I'm actually really lucky because I have so many interests and they're so broad and I like all of them.

Speaker 1 14:29

Which one is my passion? Though you might be a multi-passionate person if you have that many interests, and that's actually not a flaw, it's a strength, because it means you are multifaceted. You have so many things that you're really good at I don't mean mediocre things that you're kind of okay at and there's one main thing that you spend most of your time doing. That's your passion thing. That you spend most of your time doing. That's your passion, that one thing. But if you're really good at many things that you really enjoy, you're a multi-passion person, and I think what I'm about to say is going to help a lot of you and reassure a lot of you, because this applies to those people who ask themselves and who say I'm bored and you hear yourself saying that a lot of the time, or I'm interested in a lot of things, or I just can't pick one path in life, and this could literally be in a career sense as well.

Speaker 1 15:16

But the good thing is that you're not actually flaky. You just have a brain where you prefer variety than one specific thing, and that's great because it means you can take on more interests and you have so much more to bring to the table and you're so diversified in what you can talk about. So, for example, you could be someone who loves fitness, psychology and business. Those are three random things that are just strung together. You could become a wellness coach, or you could become a content creator, or you could become a podcast host.

Speaker 1 15:47

The main point is that your path is unique to you and you can kind of make anything out of what you want it to be, anything out of your passions. If you blend the things that you find interesting together, the multi-interests that you have, more often than not you'll be able to find a niche that actually combines all of them, which is unique to you. You like an intersection, in a way, and using those things and combining them together is almost more of a strength than just having it each individual thing by itself. So don't think that if you have so many interests, it's a bad thing and that they're not all passions, because they absolutely can be and also guys. Another reassuring thing I want to remind you is that if you don't have your passion yet, you're not all passions, because they absolutely can be, and also guys.

No Timeline for Passion Discovery

Speaker 1 16:31

Another reassuring thing I wanna remind you is that if you don't have your passion yet, you're not too late. There's no such thing as being too late to find your passion. There's no such thing as being too late to try something new. There's literally no deadline with this. That's the beauty of your passion that you have all the freedom to trial and error as many things as you want. You can start a new hobby when you're 35, when you're 50, so you don't really need to have it all figured out in your 20s. You really don't.

Speaker 1 16:59

This isn't an episode that's trying to tell you that you need to have this figured out soon. You absolutely don't. It's just a reminder. There are so many people that change their life paths when they're like 45, when they're 60. And a lot of people realise and find their main passion by trying something, by accident, and this is what's really beautiful. We need to reframe our 20s and see it as the decade of exploration, like.

Speaker 1 17:22

This is your chapter for exploring new things. This is the time where you're supposed to be doing that trialling and erroring and finding out what is meant for you, and you're just discovering what is your passion and, along the way, picking up new things that you liked by accident or trying a new hobby, and not being afraid because everyone is doing the same thing. If you feel stuck and behind, you're absolutely not. I am in the same position as you, guys. This chapter is not supposed to be your destination. It's okay if you don't have it figured out and it's also okay if you do, but there is no timeline when it comes to your passion and you have all the time in the world to figure that out.

Speaker 1 18:16

Okay, guys, I hope you enjoyed that episode. I want to remind you that your passion isn't something that you need in order to feel like you have a meaningful life, because I can understand that if you're someone who's listening right now, who doesn't have a passion yet, you might be feeling quite stressed or you could be feeling slightly anxious, thinking everyone has this thing and I don't have mine. Yet you don't need one in order to be living your best life every day. The main thing I want you to take away from this episode is that, if you are curious, willing to try new things and not feeling afraid that you look stupid because you might not be good at it, or just open to learning something new. You're already trying, you're already on your way, you're already on the right track. So don't see every job you hate, every hobby you don't like or every hobby you quit as a bad thing.

Speaker 1 19:01

So I hope you guys enjoyed that episode and I felt like it's something that we just haven't really spoken or covered on the podcast yet in depth and I really wanted to just say my piece. So I'd really really love to hear from you guys. Let me know what your passion is, instagram DM I'm gonna put something on my story when the episode comes out and let me know in the comments what's your passion. I'd love to hear it. Also, share this with someone who needs it. If you have a friend who you feel like doesn't have a passion but is talking about how they don't have their thing yet, send them the episode. I'm sure they would appreciate it and enjoy listening. Just send it on whatever channel you want and they can listen to my lovely voice, I hope, and get some use out of it. So, guys, again, make sure to follow, subscribe. I hope you have an amazing rest of your Wednesday and rest of the week and I shall see you next Wednesday. Bye, bye.