Find Your Passion in Health, Physical Fitness & Life

“You must never stand still. You’re either moving upward a little bit or you’re going the other way. You can’t expect to go upward too quickly, but you can sure go down very quickly.” -Wooden

Finding your passion and then fueling your passion is a lifelong process. I have found the best way I find my passion is when I’m in nature and get totally absorbed in the process of thinking about what I love to do.

While doing something that excites you and fuels your spirit, examine this as maybe being a passion of yours or related to what may develop your passion. I recently went snowboarding and learned some lessons on fueling my passion.

While snowboarding in Mammoth, I went down the hill very quickly, and out of fear would just fall down to stop myself. Everything that we do in life we can learn a lot from. It can teach us about other areas of our life.

In learning snowboarding for the first time, I spent a lot of time on my butt looking at the beautiful scenery and reflecting on what I was learning from the experience. The lessons I learned are related to any life goal, training goal, or passion. These are the lessons I learned from snowboarding:

1-    Friends: If you’re going to fall and make a fool of yourself, it’s best to do it with friends and loved ones around so they can cheer you on and help you up. It’s also nice when they are falling too.

2-    Perserverance: It’s not about how many times you fall, but how often you get back up.

3-    Energy: It takes up so much more energy to do it wrong and fight it than to do it right and let it be.

4-   Fear: Fear tightens up the muscles, freezes the brain, and makes it so much harder to perform.

5-    Awareness and Experience: You really have to experience what it feels like in your body to perform it correctly. People can explain technique, but not until you really feel it in your body do you understand what they are talking about.

6-    Flow & Confidence: Once I let it flow and became more confident, the experience went smoother and I made it down the mountain without falling on my butt. I kept repeating, “I got this!”

7-    Be Coachable: I had to ask for help. I had a great teacher in my friend, Yen. She broke it down one step at a time and focused on what I was doing right. She built on my successes. She was unselfish in helping us all down the hill. A true coach helps others to succeed with patience.

8-   Mistakes: Don’t be afraid to make a mistake, that’s where the true learning comes. I made a lot of mistakes, but from every one I learned a better way to perform a task or what not do next time.

9-   Repetitions: Repetition is the key to improvement. Every time I fell down, it was easier to get up. And every time I succeeded on going down the hill, I went further the next time. One does not perfect a skill instantly; Repetition is the key to natural enfoldment. If I didn’t run out of time, I might be an expert! HAHA

10- Breathe: After a good success or after trying really hard, I would fall down and sit. Instead of getting up again and forcing another fall, I knew I had to Rest, Recover, and Breathe.  After a short break and reflection on what I needed to do next, I would try again. So if you’re trying to force something and it’s just frustrating you or not working out….Rest, Recover, Breathe, and then Try Again.

Follow these guidelines when finding your passion and remember it’s a lifelong process.