Happiness Hack – How to Find Your Burning Desire

My quest to find a burning desire took time and an honest soul-search (owwwwl!)  But I can’t underestimate the happiness and life satisfaction benefitsI gained.  I wish I’d done it sooner …

Remember how good it feels when you dive deep into something and time melts … you might look up startled 10 hours have passed, that your angry stomach feels growlingly hungry, that you have a beard or hairy legs.  Discovering this upswirl ignited my soul.  In fact, due to my burning desire to create my new business, I was up until 2:30 a.m. last night/morning writing a Wikipedia page.

Am I crazy? Well, yeah, but I’ve never googled anything on Wiki that didn’t have a page.  I’m in uncharted territory, whoa … creating something new and it gives me chills.

And anyway … who needs sleep when you have a burning desire? You all felt mightily inspired by last week’s blog and are now passion-focused, right?

  • Well, no, I had to do laundry.
  • No, but maybe next month?
  • Compassion please, the dog ate my homework

I used the procrastination excuse du-jour for years when considering What To Be When I Grew Up and my life zoomed by, a silent scream building inside.

I was suffering from a smartache … my kids keep growing up (though I begged them not to) and they rarely needed me (sob!)

Plus, I dearly love my kids, but the house is never fully clean, life is never perfect, and nobody bursts out, “Wow, Mom what an outstanding dinner!”

With my kids mostly on auto-pilot, I needed to do something that would relieve my smartache, but what?

Mom, We’re Out of Underwear

Startled, I looked up from tweaking my business plan this morning… my 10-year-old daughter stood in her PJs grimacing at our laundry room. Yikes, indeed there was a towering laundry mountain with teeth. (Pause while I fix this urgent crisis.)

Deep calming breath … so how did I find the burning desire to create a business that keeps me happily working long past midnight, and recently caused underwear-gate?  Thanks for asking … here’s my cheat sheet.

Find upswirl activities. If hours pass unnoticed, and you might forget to eat, sleep or make dinner (it’s cheating if you overlook dinner on purpose) you’ve found your passion. For me it’s creating happiness for me … and for you. Find a creative way to work at what you love.

If you aren’t sure who you are, prioritize your core values.  Yeah, I know this is hard.  Decide who you want to be and be that person.  This will transform a vanilla life into a spicy adventure.  It worked for me, hallelujah and amen.

Narrow down interests with a quiz if you feel lost.  TestQ offers interesting job and lifestyle quizzes that can help you find favorite interests.

Force yourself to thinkthinkthinkthinkthink and then think till your thinker is sore.  Don’t stop until you come up with three ideas that zing your heart.  Set a deadline (I gave myself two months), choose your best idea, and tada … you now have a burning desire.

Thomas Edison failed 1000+ times before he made a successful light bulb. Without his passion we might all still be in the dark.

What creates upswirl for you?   Please comment, like and share …

Shellee Godfrey

Shellee Godfrey creates happiness for her clients as a Systems Analyst and writes comedy screenplays based on her smart and sassy 80’s diva background.