The Risk of Following your Passion

Photo by Jon Rawlinson

Every successful person on earth will tell you that one of the most important components in living a happy, successful, fulfilled life, is to follow your passion.

Essentially, this is proven and confirmed to be one of the key rules of success and happiness. You can’t wake up in the morning and be happy with your life, if you hate what you do for a living. You can’t be successful in what you do for a living, if it does not inspire you, if it does not fulfill your highest values.  You can’t create big things and make a difference in your work, if you are not passionate about what you are offering to the world.

There is however one important component that most people tend to leave out when they are talking about how important it is to find and follow your passion.

It’s the risk involved if you fail to follow a certain action plan, once you decide what your passion is.

The risk of following your passion is giving up everything to follow your big dream, without having a measurable, logical, researched plan of action in place, for monetizing your passion.

Its listening blindly to your heart without using the sense of logic and business acumen.

Its believing that somehow things will magically work out if you think positive, failing to take into consideration market and society needs.

Its giving up secure income, before you have an indication of when you can start making a living out of your passion.

The risk of following your passion is also about taking all the recommended steps described, but finding out that your plan is not working out.

Its loosing it all and having to start over again, even if you did have a solid plan of action in place.

Without Risk however, nothing great has been achieved.

Do you seat at home and settle for whatever you have or do you make the effort to follow passion?  The answer that any successful person will give you is always to follow your passion. So how do you move forward once you decide what your passion is?

Don’t take silly risks, take calculated risks.

Follow your passion, but do extensive research and planning before you begin. Examine all the options to get to your goal. Calculate all parameters and create a measurable business plan.

Ask for help and utilize the experience and know-how of others who have succeeded in the past.

Plan your actions and estimate expected results, before you forge forward on the path of conquering your passion.

Strive to become the best in what you are offering and learn to adapt quickly in changing market conditions.

Create a backup plan and make the effort to have multiple sources of income and savings.

Don’t think small when creating your plan, otherwise you will plan only for small. Plan for the short term and the long term.

Take these steps and the risk of following your passion will not matter anymore, because it is minimized.

Above all, don’t let the fear about the risks stop you. Risk is always involved when creating success. Go out and take action to make your dreams come true.

Watch the popular Steve Jobs Stanford address,  a must watch speech, where he talks about the importance of finding your passion and doing what you love: