“Often people are very good at things they do not really care for,” says Sir Ken Robinson, a professor in Education, in his Ted Talk Bring on the Learning Revolution. But the things that will set you apart are the things that you are naturally good at combined with passion.
Robinson’s book The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything has been translated into 23 languages and has sold over a million copies worldwide.
Time
“It’s about passion”, says Robinson, “and what excites our spirit and our energy. If you are doing the thing that you love to do, that you are good at, time takes a different course entirely.”
“If you do something you love, an hour feels like five minutes.
If you’re doing something that doesn’t resonate with your spirit, five minutes feels like an hour. The reason why so many people are opting out of education is because it doesn’t feed their spirit, it doesn’t feed their energy or their passion.”
Happy place
Our daughter has a talent to make music, and a while ago she said that she now realises that her “happy place” is a shop that sells music instruments. A bit upsetting to me, because the merchandise in such a store is quite expensive.
My “happy place” on the other hand is a book store. An hour really feels like five minutes when I visit a bookstore; new or second hand. I can associate with Amy Lovell who once said
“Books are more than books. They are the life, the very heart and core of ages past, the reason why men lived and worked and died, the essence and quintessence of their lives.”
What are you naturally good at as well as passionate about? Or perhaps, where is your “happy place?”
# The element
According to Sir Ken Robinson there are different ways that you can tell when you are in what he calls your “element.” He uses the term being in your element to describe the point where that thing you are naturally good at comes together with your passion, where you have your heart and soul into something.
This is where you’ll experience that time changes, where you are lost in the activity and you lose track of time. Robinson also refers to such a point as
being in the zone.
You’ll know when you are there because you feel centred, focused and you are doing something that resonates deeply with your sense of being here and now.
Being in the zone means different things for different people, for some it may be exercising, for others restoring antiques, others doing their work or running a business, etc. The reality though is that often people spend most of their time not in the zone, because they are not doing something they feel passionate about.
Not sure whether you’ve even discovered your zone yet? Consider a Career Direct Assessment. It will make all the difference for the years to come. Make the rest of your life the best of your life.
Also tune in to my radio program “Jy die Entrepreneur” Monday evenings at 20:00 and Saturdays 12:30 on Radio Namakwaland www.934fm.co.za.
