Passion and purpose. Two words that are inextricably connected, but are also distinct entities on their own. Passion is about thoughts and feelings, the motivation, and what makes us feel good, i.e. “do what you love”. Purpose, on the other hand, is the reason, or the why behind what we do, mainly for others, i.e, “do what contributes.”
But once you look in the direction of your passion and purpose if you want to experience true happiness, joy, and personal fulfillment in life, you will notice that you often don’t follow them. Due to the necessity of surviving—working nonstop to pay the bills and lead a fulfilling life—these two frequently take a second seat for the majority of people.
The deep-seated desire for fulfillment that exists in every person is satisfied by nothing else than living purposefully and pursuing their actual passion, you will discover when you consider long rather than short. But Ankit Jhamb has different views.
He says, “We see passion as a part of life. Like breathing, like brushing teeth, like eating, like spending time with family is a part of your lifestyle. If pursuing passion is not part of the lifestyle, it’s not going to happen to you. Because then it’s like shopping. I will do it when I want to. I will do it when I’m, I need to uplift my mood, and fashion doesn’t come to you like that. Pursuing is so important.”
This time on Coaching Matters, Ankit Jhamb joined us to lead us on a journey from Passion To Purpose. Here is a transcripted version of the conversation that followed.
Balancing Our Purpose and Passion
“I’m telling you this the moment you stop chasing purpose, it will come and sit on your shoulder like a butterfly because you get up every day in the morning to go back to sleep on your bed with a fulfillment you, you will feel a sense of completeness within your body, mind, and soul.” – Ankit Jhamb
At times, we are unable to pursue our passion in our life so we tend to experience a space of guilt and start to question our true passion. How do we balance that?
Any kind of balance comes with an imbalance. If you don’t hit the equation right in the first go, you will first mess up and spoil everything, all passionate people are known to first fall for an imbalance where we overdo things because that’s what gives us energy and we become self-obsessed. And then we realize that life requires a balance because the larger equation of life cannot be disgusted.
If it is truly a passion, and it’s not infatuation, like a first love at first sight, and if it’s truly passion, it won’t leave you. You can stop pursuing it for two months and three months, then the thought comes, I have to do that to your spot, I have to do that. Three years past, I have to do that. Please accept the fact that your body is giving you a signal to act on it. And that’s what the symptom of passion is.
Passion will not leave you it does not matter. The risk, however, is if passion does not get acted upon, it turns into irritation and frustration. That’s the kind of life some people get stuck into. Because in that irritation and frustration there is sometimes a blame game because I didn’t do passion I couldn’t pursue when I was young because of this parental responsibility, finance, blah, blah, blah. You can live that life as well. But here is where the antidote to that is I asked people that if you want to write and you think you can write a book and you write for five minutes. Can you write for two minutes? Can you write for 30 seconds? Can you not write one line and then you will realize that the principle of atomic habits, small habits add up. I’ve only written for about 45 minutes, four times a week. And the compounded benefit of that has been nine books in the last two and a half, three years. I have not spent nights and that’s the balance. You don’t need to go all out at one go. You don’t need to write for four hours, you don’t need to continue to do that you need to convert the lifestyle, give up something, let go of something and protect something.
So, sometimes we get stuck in phases. It’s absolutely all right, you check. Am I still so affectionate? Am I still so spirited about that thought? If the answer is yes, you come back to that. The point I was trying to make in the comments is once you surrender to an act, once you surrender yourself to the joy of writing, to the joy of being the joy of doing something, you realize it doesn’t matter if people get affected or not. Because of that social validation, a beautiful impact of just being yourself is that you impact your ecosystem.
Can There Be Multiple Passions?
“I gave myself the target that if your passion is true, and the love is true, you will write the most ugliest manuscript available on one side. You don’t need to write a beautiful book, you just need to write to what you feel.” – Ankit Jhamb
Yes and no. If you’re trying to pursue multiple passions at the same point of time in your life, you will be jacked, you can’t do that. You can’t surrender at multiple places you can’t be true to it’s like dating five people at the same point in time. You can’t. There is only one love you can do at one point in time. But there can be multiple passions in a phase of life. And that also defines purpose because all of these would come from a value system of who you are.
I wanted to help people but I also went to a phase where I’m obsessed with myself helping people and, it becomes a burden because you’re trying to control the outcome. You’re doing therapy, and somebody is going through a suicidal tendency, you take it upon yourself. No, no, no, I like helping people. How can you commit suicide? How can you have this thought, If I become controlling, you have to be free.
Your belongingness to the outcome is a very slippery space. So when you pursue a passion, and you pursue multiple passions, you will be in checklist criteria, or did I do this, there is no belonging in that there is no joy there.
For five years, and that’s what my rule is. And when I started doing theater, I told myself, I’m going to do theater for three years and then check a body, can I sustain it? Can I maintain it, and if I can’t, then I’m going to keep it up. But in three years, I’m going to surrender to that space, I’m going to go through the grind, and then decide then I gave it up because it wasn’t sustainable. I started NGO and I wanted to pursue that. I did it for six years, I realize it’s sustainable. The passion can move on silently in an auto motor, volunteers set up systems, structures process, and running.
I wrote the first book, and I realized now I will check if I have the second book, I wrote the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth, by the third book, I realize it’s happening. And it’s for real. It’ll continue to happen all the time, I will continue to feed my soul with ideas with stories. So you get to know how life is shaping up for you. And then you decide that Okay, in this phase of life, I’m going to pursue one passion surrender, you evolve, you become better you learn discipline, you apply the same formula, I applied my running strategy to my books, would you believe that? How I started running 21 kilometers was by running two kilometers, then extending it to 10%, then 10%, then 10%. And in two months, I was doing 17. That is exactly what I did to running small, baby steps every single day.
That’s how I wrote my books. Running teaches you to end the marathon. It taught me closures. It taught me that just completing 21 kilometers, I was struggling, I have flat feet, I would burn I would bleed. And I’m not kidding. But I would tell myself, you finish the last finish. And that’s the goal of my first book to make the ugliest manuscript available. Because of progress versus perfection.
What never exists in your life will never be beautified and decorated. If something exists, you can only then work on it to correct it and edit it and make it 50% of people drop out of writing and passion because our longing for perfection is almost an epidemic. Perfect plan. Perfect strategy. Perfect day. Some people will take a holiday go outside the hills, watch the beach and start writing and come back belong to the same routine. And they said now I can’t. Now I can’t I enjoy the moment has gone, the inspiration is gone. No, I’m telling you inspiration is an ugly game of discipline.
What will stop you from writing two ugly lines every day? Tell me that even the ego does not interfere because you’ve given such a low target to yourself only two ugly lines. And then you realize you become a beautiful point dutiful writer and about three months, six months and your body responds. It’s like muscle memory.
About The Speaker
“I’ve been blessed with the ability to understand how the fragrance of fashion looks like. And that was the answer.” – Ankit Jhamb
Ankit Jhamb is a senior leader with one of the world’s largest consulting organisations.
With over 14 years of experience in Performance Consulting, Learning and Development, and Coaching, he has helped thousands of people understand themselves better through his workshops and methods. His comprehensive approach to human behaviour mixes Psychology, Neuroscience, Spirituality and Ayurveda. He believes in looking at life from a holistic point of view.
He is a Clinical Hypnotherapist, a Wellness Coach and a Neuro-Linguistic Programming and MBTI Practitioner. He holds a master’s degree in Human Resources and Psychology. He has over 14 years of experience in Performance Consulting, Learning and Development, and Coaching, he has helped thousands of people to understand their selves better through his workshops and methods. He currently serves as the Chief learning Officer (CLO) Of Grant Thornton LLP.
