Recap WITI Boston - April 8, 2014

The Passion Test: The Effortless Path to Discovering Your Life Purpose"
Recap WITI Boston - April 8, 2014
By Emily Ubik

In April, WITI members and non-members gathered at Foley Hoag LLC in downtown Boston to take the Passion Test. Led by Donna Ceriani, Executive Coach and Consultant at The Real Journey LLC, this event focused on how to identify and work towards your top five passions. Before the workshop began, attendees enjoyed beverages, a light dinner, and each other's company.

Donna started off by posing a simple question: How many people say they are unhappy? The answer is shockingly eighty percent; that is four out of every five people! Based off of the book The Passion Test: The Effortless Path to Discovering Your Life Purpose by Janet and Chris Attwood, this workshop adaptation was meant to guide participants through the process of evaluating their lives. Donna broke down the test into three simple steps.

The first step was to finish the sentence, "When my life is ideal, I am..." ten times so that you have a list of the most important things in your life. Possible topics to consider include your career, family, travel, health, money, or spirituality. Donna reminded everyone that the key in this step is to make sure you use positive language. Rather than saying your life is ideal when you are 'less rushed', use 'relaxed' or 'laid back'. After all, it is hard to find happiness if you start out with a negative perspective. This is not the stage where you assess the likelihood of fulfilling your passions. This is the section where you are completely honest with yourself and write down what would make you feel satisfied and complete.

In the second phase, the list made was pared down to one's top five passions. This involved comparing each answer, asking, "Which is more important?" until you are left with your final five passions. If one gets stuck, ask yourself, "Which would you rather never be able to do?" Particularly at this point, it helps to go through the list with a partner, which we did and allowed all attendees to make additional WITI connections.

For the third stage, each passion gets rated on a scale of zero to ten. 'Zero' indicates that a passion is not present in your life at all, while 'ten' means that you are living this passion to the fullest. The main question to ask here is, "How satisfied are you that you are fulfilling that passion?" If you have lower values, you should question yourself, "What baby steps can I take to do more to fulfill my intention?" For the last task, Donna had everyone write down what she called 'markers' for each passion. Markers are observable, measureable evidence that you are indeed living your passions. In other words, what your life would look like if you fulfilled a specific passion.

Donna cleverly outlined the idea behind the Passion Test - first define your intentions, second give them attention, and third there will be no tension! Taking this test and seriously considering each step does reveal an entirely different perspective in one's life that you may not have recognized before. Donna also reminded the attendees to stay open to all possibilities; the test does not work unless you are true to yourself. If you are trying to include more of your passions in your life, Donna suggested keeping them in plain sight. She recommended using a vision board or pictures displayed perhaps on your refrigerator or desk as motivation. Lastly, she urged everyone to do the Passion Test about every six months, since what is important to us can change.

Many women walked away from this workshop with a better understanding of themselves and ideas of how to achieve their passions. The evening finished with a WITI raffle! Several books were given away - The Passion Test, Donna's book The Real Journey: Find Adventure in Everyday Living, and The Power of Everyday Networking by Patti Hunt Dirlam and Perry McIntosh.

About Our Guest Author:
Emily Ubik is a junior at Boston University pursuing a double major in electrical engineering and archaeology. She comes to Boston from the Midwest and was interested in getting to know women in business and making connections. She came across Women in Technology through her father, when he mentioned that WITI was trying to become more involved with universities. She is now an active member of the local network and is looking forward to writing more about WITI Boston events.

About Women in Technology Boston:
The Boston affiliation of Women in Technology International offers multiple events throughout the year in metro Boston and downtown. Our focus is to provide ways in which women of all ages, skill sets and backgrounds connect with other women both locally and globally to advance their careers and improve their leadership development skills. To learn more and see what's up next, visit http://www.witi.com/boston

Opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily those of WITI.