Janet Attwood on Finding Your Top Five Passions
Once you have your list of passions written out, the next move is an elimination process. Start at the top. Hold passion number one against passion number two and ask a simple question: which of these feels better? Whichever one wins, carry it forward. Then compare that winner against the third item on your list. If number three feels better, it advances, and you weigh it against number four, then four against five, and so on down the line. You keep going until one passion has survived every comparison. That is the one you circle.
We ask people to narrow things down to five. There is a reason for the number. We have been working with neuroscientists at the University of Pennsylvania who found that the mind can really only hold its attention clearly on five to seven pieces of information at once. So rather than scatter your focus, pick your top five. That is a small enough set to actually keep in mind day to day.
After you know what those five are, write them on a 3 by 5 card. Keep it somewhere you will see it often: taped to your computer, stuck on the bathroom mirror, propped by your bed. Read them without any pressure, just a quiet reminder that says, this is what I care about. Then begin making choices that favor those things, over and over. That first pass, the elimination step to arrive at your top five, is a strong place for anyone to begin.
Eric asked what happens next, especially for someone who has done the exercise, taken their notes, and is now sitting with a nagging worry: what if I fail? How do you handle that fear and keep moving?
In our passion test certification program, a lot of our time goes toward helping people take apart their limiting beliefs. The single thing standing between a person and a passionate life is the set of false ideas they carry around, the mistaken concepts, the beliefs that are not true. So we walk people through a straightforward way of dismantling those beliefs.
I don't know whether you are familiar with the work of Byron Katie. We have used her approach for many years now. It is a simple practice of self-inquiry that begins to loosen the beliefs keeping you stuck. The thoughts are the real obstacle: I'm not good enough, not smart enough, not rich enough, not beautiful enough, not educated enough. You can be perfectly clear about what you are passionate about, but if you are still gripping those limiting beliefs, it is like running into a brick wall. The beliefs have to come undone before the path of passion can feel effortless.