Do you want to follow your passion?

How is it going?

If you’re like most people, it’s not going so well.

Most of us expect a white knight to swoop down and lead us to glory once we’ve found our passion, but it doesn’t quite work that way.

Following your passion takes hard work, but it’s immensely rewarding. There are a lot of lies people tell about following your passion.

But in this article you’ll get nothing but the stone cold truth, so keep reading.

1. Hard Work

Realizing your passion takes a lot of hard work. You have to figure out how to do it, and what truly works.

If you want to make a living with your passion, you have to take action, and made a lot of mistakes, because you have to figure out how you’re going to make your endeavor profitable.

You have to find a market for what you’re doing. It will take longer than you think, but less time than you fear.

2. Persistence

This is where persistence comes in, because you have to keep moving forward to succeed.

The only way you can fail is by giving up. You will run into obstacles, fear, and other bumps in the road, but they do not matter if you keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Sure, it won’t be fun at times, but nothing is. Do you really want to stay where you are and look back at your life in the future and regret not having taken the steps to go after your dreams?

3. Fear

Fear lurks everywhere. When you venture into the unknown, you will be afraid, and you will want to seek security and comfort to get away from that fear.

This is the worst thing you can do, because it is through facing your fears that you will succeed.

The people that are willing to face fear head-on are also the ones that make the fastest amount of progress, and the ones that are most fulfilled, because they realize that fear is only an illusion – albeit a powerful one.

4. Confusion

Another common stumbling block is the confusion that happens when you first start following your passion.

You don’t know what to do, when to start, or even how to do it. The simple secret to achieving success despite this is to take action now.

It’s counter-intuitive, but it works. When you take action, you’ll gain clarity, and you will learn what works and what doesn’t.

You don’t have to be crystal clear about that in order to follow your passion.

5. Action

And this brings us to the next harsh truth, which is taking action. Iíve been mentioning the value of taking action throughout this article, but I think it deserves its own spot, donít you?

Most people get stuck in analyzing and trying to make things perfect before they take action, but it gives them false hope, because nothing happens.

Stop planning, put down your pen, and take action right now.

What can you do today that will make a difference in your life?

You may be scared, and you may even be confused, but you can still take action. Once you start moving forward despite all the negative feelings you have, you will see that they aren’t so bad after all.

6. Determination

There will come a time when you are incredibly frustrated and want to throw in the towel.

This is when you need the determination to keep moving forward. Make sure you’re doing something that you’re passionate about.

When you bump into challenge after challenge after challenge, use your determination to get you where you want to be.

The tough times you will face are merely signs that you’re getting closer to your goal. And when you get through these tough times, you will be even stronger and move towards your passion even faster.

It’s a vicious cycle that keeps going on and on. You get more excited, become stronger, and accomplish more.

And it doesn’t hurt that you enjoy life.

7. Fulfillment

What would an article like this be without at least something positive? Although, most of these harsh truths are positive, it all depends on your perspective.

Even though there are a lot of tough things you have to do in order to follow your passion, it will lead to fulfillment, at least that has been my experience.

Doing what you love is not easy, but for me it’s the only thing.

I will not settle for mediocrity, and I refuse to stand down.

I will follow my passion, or die trying.

What about you?

Henri writes at Wake Up Cloud, where you can get his FREE life-changing course right now: Find Your Passion in 5 Days or Less.

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