What happens when you follow your passion

In my previous post I wrote about five things you should give up to follow your passion.

Have you given up those five things?

You have?

Great!

Here’s what happens when you follow your passion:

Money magically appears

Back in April last year, I was really struggling to stay motivated in my job. I decided to take a week off work to see if I could make an income from writing.

I knew I wanted to be a “coach and writer” but I did not know how.

During that week, my friend suddenly asked me if I was interested in a ghostwriting project. The project would be worth US$20,000, to be split between us.

I was stunned.

That project alone would give me enough money to support my expenses for several months. 

Clients magically appear 

• When I first decided to coach people, I wondered where I would get my first clients. But I didn’t have to worry about that for long. Out of the blue, my friend introduced a client to me. My friend had met a stranger randomly at a Starbucks. They started chatting and… that stranger just happened to be looking for a coach.
• Then, another person whom I was practising coaching with suddenly asked me if she could pay me to coach her. We had been drilling together for some time, but now for some reason she wanted to start paying me.
• Another person that I met at an event suddenly texted me said that she was looking for a coach.
• Just today, my client whom I was supposed to see for only five sessions, asked me for more sessions! 
• Earlier this year, I had been training to become a vocal coach. In the middle of my training – I wasn’t even looking for clients yet – a participant of a coaching workshop I had organised asked me if I knew a vocal coach. I responded, “Yes, me!” I gave him the first session at no charge, since I was still in training. He asked if his wife could attend as well and I said, sure! A month later, I got a message from a stranger asking me if I offered singing lessons. I said yes and quoted him a fee. Today he has become a recurring client and someone I really enjoy working with! I asked him how he knew about me. He said that he had gotten my contact from my first client’s wife.

You receive help and encouragement

When I first started this blog, I was not confident about my writing. I did not know if my writing was good enough or if I should even bother sharing my thoughts online.

However, every time I thought about giving up, something would happen to give me the encouragement I needed.

• Soon after I started posting my articles on Medium, I received an invitation from a Vunela, an educational publication, asking me if I wanted to publish my articles on their magazine
• When I neglected my writing, I suddenly received an invitation from Sivana Spirit saying they had noticed my Elephant Journal article, and asked me to write an article for them, which I did. The article I eventually wrote was titled: “7 unexpected benefits of self-expression” – go figure!
• When I had not posted on this blog for a couple of months, I suddenly got a message from my author friend, Su-Ann, asking if I accepted guest posts on my blog. This was a huge surprise to me! When I was starting out as a writer, I had sought her out for advice on what it was like to be a writer. Now she was offering to publish her writing on this blog. I felt lucky and inspired. Because of Su-Ann’s out-of-the-blue message to me, I visited my blog’s home page. And realised that, because of some technical error, the blog and was not accessible to readers online anymore! That message from Su-Ann felt like my writing angels reaching out to me, hinting at me to come back to my writing. I fixed my blog immediately and said a hearty “YES” to her offer.

You feel invigorated

I recently spoke to a friend about the magic that happens when you follow your path. He shared his own experience:

My friend has always had a dream to be a writer. He had written poems and short stories since young, but stopped writing when he entered university and started studying engineering. He graduated and became an engineer, but was really lost and miserable at his job.

After doing a transformational coaching program, he reconnected to his dream.

He finished writing his first book in three weeks, after not writing for more than ten years.

He spent the fourth week completing the cover art, publishing, and marketing his book.

In that month he was pursuing his purpose, my friend felt that he had been invigorated by a mysterious force.

It did not seem possible that he could have written a whole novel in only three weeks, but he did.

The universe supports you

For many of us stuck in routine and drudgery, life feels like a drag. We feel dissatisfied, lost, restless. The days seem long and repetitive. We go to work only to wait for the day to end so we can get on with our lives. Even though we get sleep, we feel tired all the time.

That’s because we aren’t living the lives we’re meant to lead. We are not walking our own paths.

When we walk on our paths, things seem to happen for us.

Support appears, seemingly out of nowhere.

We feel buoyed by some invisible force, encouraging us and edging us forward.

When we start following our passions, when we start living our purpose and following our true paths, things start to open up for us.

How to figure out your passion/path/purpose

Here are 10 questions to ask yourself to figure out your passion / path / purpose:

1. What did you dream about doing as a kid?
2. What would you do even if nobody knew about it and nobody paid you?
3. What do you feel you “must” do, otherwise life has no meaning?
4. If money and time did not matter, what would you be doing?
5. If nobody were judging you, what would you do?
6. What are you most afraid of doing?
7. What do you most want to give to the world?
8. What difference do you want to make in this world?
9. If your parents supported you 100%, what would you do?
10. If you were enough, and you were loved unconditionally, what would you do?