Do you ever feel like you have lost the passion you once had?

Perhaps you were passionate about your job or about a relationship or about some really important area of life. In fact, you may have said something like this: “I believe this is the reason God put me on this Earth. I believe this is the reason I’m here.” For some reason though, along the way you have lost your passion. This is an experience that I think all of us can relate to and sometimes more deeply than at others.

At the very least all of us know what it feels like not being as excited anymore about what we once focused on almost exclusively. So, how do you regain your passion when it seems to be lost? I don’t have all of the answers to this but this is one of the thoughts that I’ve had in my life as I’ve experienced these times excitement followed by something that can be best described as melancholy. Here are a couple of thoughts that have helped me during these inevitable seasons of life:

First, Realize that a lack of passion is normal.

It happens. In fact, if the only reason you’re doing the thing that you believe you are called to do is because you’re passionate about it, you WILL eventually walk away. Passion is as much an emotion as it is anything else so if you are doing what you do simply because you feel passionate about it right now, understand that there will come a time when the feeling will pass. So one of the first things you need to do is step back and ask the question:  “Am I doing what I believe I should be doing whether I feel like it or not, whether I’m excited about it or not?” Now should you be passionate and excited about the thing you believe you’re placed on earth by God to accomplish? Of course! But don’t let your emotions or a momentary lack of passion keep you from doing what you believe you were created to do.  That’s the first question you need to ask am I doing this because I believe I should or because I was simply excited about it.

Next, Understand that there are a lot of things that affect passion.

Fatigue, distraction, and the hundreds of other things going on in life can all pull your attention away from what you once were passionate about. It may be that you have not lost your passion, you are just in a season where focus has become difficult. In these seasons you have nothing to feel bad about. Rest if you are tired, deal with the issues that have drawn your focus or your attention away, get healthy, and then re-engage.

Finally, you need to step back and ask the question one more time: “Why is it that I believed this is what God wanted me to do?”

Once you nail that down, once you’ve gotten rest and you’ve removed the distractions, it’s time to get back to work!

Don’t do the work because you feel excited about it all of the time- do the work because that’s what you were called to do! And as you do it because that’s what you were called to do, the passion, if it’s really what you were called to do, will come back.

Passion will come and go. So what do you do when it happens to you? Well, ask the question, “Am I doing what I’m supposed to do?” Get Rest, regain focus, and get back to work!

The creator that put you on this earth to do what He has called you to do will stoke in you a passion for the work.

Eliminate the things that are keeping you from doing what he wants you to do.

And then do the work. He will provide the passion.

 

This post is the transcript of my video “When you have lost your passion.” The video can be found here.

 

Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash