We have all heard the advice that if you find your passion then you never have to work. Finding passion is easier said than done, but is worth the search. Methods range from reflecting back on your school days to listening to your heart. However, various loose definitions of passion have resulted in many people mistaking their extra-curricular activities or past time hobbies as their passion, thereby not striving to find their real passion which necessarily requires sacrifices and willingness to take risks. I have found a couple of advices very useful on this subject, one of which from Steve Job's Stanford University Speech:
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone
else’s life. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own
inner voice.
You have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.
You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma,
whatever.
This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the
difference in my life.
The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.
Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to
bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful, that’s what matters
to me.
The second is from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his book Flow:
When we choose a goal and invest ourselves in it to the limits of our concentration, whatever we do will be enjoyable. And once we have tasted this joy, we will redouble our efforts to taste it again. This is the way the self grows.
A flow activity (can be read as passion activity), whether it involved competition, chance, or any other dimension of experience, had this in common: It provided a sense of discovery, a creative feeling of transporting a person into a new reality. It pushed the person to higher levels of performance.
What is the common thread? It is the willingness to take risks and make sacrifices. It is exhilarating to come closer and closer to self-discipline.