On November 2, 2022, the DDAC Toastmasters club (@ddac2020) discussed passion during its monthly hour of diverse discussion and how to rekindle our passion when it fades away. The session was honoured by respectable Toastmasters from Canada, the USA, Australia, Pakistan and India, plus the club members.
What is Passion?
Passion is the desire to achieve, as DTM Fettah Ennayal mentioned, and supported by DTM Alicia from Australia, who mentioned that it is the fire which moves you out of your comfort zone. Then the question was if we should be passionate in the first place. DTM Omer Farooq answered that question by saying that we should not in case we need to live ordinary, learning and doing the basics. Still, on the other side, it is essential to be passionate if we want to excel and maximize our productivity.
How to identify your passion?
Knowing how important passion is, how can we identify our passion? In different words, what makes us do anything with a desire to accomplish it? Omar said that if you can do what you enjoy for free, then it is your passion, while Zahra Ahmed said that we have to keep trying new activities until we find enjoyment in one of them. Alicia mentioned that we attract our passions by being courageous enough to take tough decisions that may move us out of our comfort zone. While Fettah clarified that we need to identify what we have to do and what we want to do, the latter indicates our passions. Knowing our passion does not mean we should stop exploring new experiences; Judith Smtih from the USA said that passion might not remain the same throughout our lives and may evoke.
Why do we lose our passion and interest?
Knowing our passion does not protect us from losing it, but it may be a reason for it because when we get engaged much in what we love, we may get burnt out and exhausted, as Fettah Ennayal said. However, there are other reasons for losing our interest, such as discovering that we are not achieving our expectations like what Alicia said. At the same time, Youssef Maghrabi expected that people lose interest due to not identifying specific goals to accomplish while practising what they love to do.
How to rekindle our passion?
The good news is that even if we lose our passion, we can still gain it back by taking a few actions. For example, Fettah Ennayal recommended taking a break and doing something else; this break may ignite your missed desire and helps in regaining your energy and interest. Ardee had another recommendation: to explore new activities, to find your second version of yourself, which may find its passion in something new. Zahra Ahmed suggested that we can look at our interests from a different perspective; this may let us regenerate our lost interest in doing what we love. Finally, Judith had another opinion, to do what we do but differently.
“Do it in a different way”
Judith Smith
Maintaining our passion or interest is a continuous process, which requires feeding it both mentally by staying focused on keeping it for a purpose to achieve specific goals, and physically by avoiding getting exhausted and burnt out comes from balancing all our responsibilities and hobbies.
Samer Kamal
The One Hour of DD facilitator
SAMER'S REFLECTIONS خواطر سامر 