A Fit Girl’s Guide to Fuelling your Passion

Hey loves,

As part 2 of my fit girl’s series featuring skills required for success, this week’s blog post is going to cover how we can fuel our passion.

Passion is a trait that every successful person possesses, that passion is then transmuted into their success and fruition of their goals.

Passion, in addition to characteristics like ambition adds that fuel that allows one to persist in reaching their goals. It prevents one from quitting and makes every step of the journey satisfying.

What is passion?

Sign on ground that says “passion led us here”

Passion describes a positive energy that keeps us moving towards our goals. This energy holds meaning to us and makes us feel happy.

Furthermore, it describes a personal connection that we have to our objectives that make them emotionally significant for us.

“Passion is the energy that keeps us going, that keeps us filled with meaning, and happiness, and excitement, and anticipation. Passion is a powerful force in accomplishing anything you set your mind to, and in experiencing work and life the fullest extent possible (Kerpen,2014).”

Passion is essentially a force that allows us to achieve what our heart, spirit or mind truly wants. It accelerates success and makes the process of achieving goals enjoyable.

“When you are enthusiastic about what you do, you feel this positive energy. It’s very simple.” – Paulo Coehlo

How we experience passion in fitness

We can experience our passion for fitness with a sense of community and belonging. There is also a sense of camaraderie that plays into the gym whether that is pushing us to hit new PR’s or double down on our workout intensity.

“Have you noticed, when people are talking about sports, passion is eventually a part of the conversation. When you have a minute, type the word “passion” into the search bar of your favorite sports media outlet and watch the headlines stack up! It’s the secret sauce that everyone looks for when they’re looking for success (Waldron, 2020).”

Passion in sports is contagious, you often find fans or supporters of an athlete filled with this positive energy that both inspires and motivates their support so the athlete!

Sport psychology defines two types of passion, one that is healthy and the other that is unhealthy. The concepts are of harmonious vs obsessive passion.

What is harmonious passion?

Harmonious passion is exhibited when the athlete freely engages in their sport with volition. With this type of passion, there is no uncontrollable urge to participate, it is a calm love for the sport that extends from the self.

The athlete is not defined by this type of passion. The benefits of this type of passion are an improvement of concentration, having an optimistic mindset and flow in learning and performance.

What is obsessive passion?

Obsessive passion on the other hand is the unhealthy one of the two passions. It involves the athlete internalizing their sport into their identity.

The athlete see themselves as defined by the sport, and they experience an uncontrollable urge to participate over everything.

This type of obsessive passion can lead them towards an imbalanced life, and a direct link between their self-esteem to their success in the sport.

Finally, there is the distinction between rage and athletic passion.

“Athletic passion flows freely from a heart of gratitude for the gift of “running the race” so to speak. Rage, on the other hand, stems from a thankless, wounded heart.”

I have found this wonderful blog post article linking faith to performance and I do wish to share the wisdom of an athlete who is resolute in their faith.

“Our love for the game should be an overflow or our love for the one who created us to play (Waldron, 2020).”

Passion for God

In his article, “What fuels your athletic passion?”, Monty Waldron describes his experience with passion and sports.

He learned that playing with a passion that honors God offers much more to the one who gave us the gift of sport than it does for the sport itself.

Waldron describes looking to God for the sense of purpose, belonging, victory and growth and that he will deliver those to us without fail or disappointment.

“If we love our sport more than we love our God, we are destined for an enormous let-down. But if we set our hearts on God first, we can enjoy the fruit of our efforts in this life, whatever we may achieve (Waldron, 2024).

Why is passion important?

Sign that says “love what you do and do what you love”

Passion is important because it allows us to be more resilient and focused in spite of any adversity or obstacle.

Passion drives success and happiness and allows us both thrive while pursuing our goals and accomplish them.

Steve Jobs, for instance, believed in the power of passion and claimed that his passion for his work made the biggest difference.

Benefits of having passion

Organizer, notepad, earphones, laptop and sign that says “never settle”

Helps intensify focus

Brings positive energy

Develops optimism

Better quality of work

Boosts confidence

Increases creativity

Increases productivity

It enables innovation

Increases motivation

Increases self-awareness and self-confidence

Makes work more enjoyable

Leads to both professional and career success
Leads to a simplified life and personal freedom
Expansion of our comfort zones
Empowerment
Fulfillment of our vocational purposes

How to fuel our passion in fitness or other areas

Woman on a swing with waterfall in the forefront

1) Tune into your inner voice

Tune into the voices that chatter inside of your head, instead of ignoring them, find out what they are guiding you towards.

Slow down your inner dialogue and listen for the feelings and needs with the utmost of compassion.

Breathe and instead of ignoring or running away from your feelings, feel them and listen to what is driving the noise.

It is only from acceptance that you can align from what’s truly important to you. Furthermore, you release the need to do things the right way and instead, do things at your natural pace/style.

2) Explore what your passions are

Click here for good questions to ask yourself to explore your passions

They can include questions like:

What are your dreams?

What is your vision for your life?

What do the people closest to you know about what makes you happy or sparks a fire in you?

3) Act on your passions

Based on the previous exercises, act on your passions. Whether they are to create, explore, design or express yourself, now is your time to act on them!

4) Share your passion with the world!

This is the hardest and most rewarding part, if you can unlearn the fear of being seen and feel whatever fear (and freedom on the other end of it) that may arise, you can finally share your gifts with the world!

Whether you start a social media account, expand or announce your business/creative endeavors, now is your time to shine!

Passionate successful people

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs is the former CEO of Apple, he largely credited his success to being passionate about innovation and the life-changing products he creates.

“People With Passion Can Change The World”- Steve Jobs

Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg is the CEO of Facebook and largely credits his success to his passion for his work and the impact he has had on the world.

“If you just work on stuff that you like and you’re passionate about, you don’t have to have a master plan with how things will play out.”

Warren Buffet

Warren Buffet is an American investor, philanthropist and chairperson of Berkshire Hathaway. He has a net worth of 135.8 billion USD.

His professional success can largely be attributed to his passion for the fields he worked and invested in.

“I will give you two pieces of advice. Invest as much in yourself as you can; you are your own best asset by far. Then follow your passion; you want to be really excited to get out of bed every morning.”