I love the topic of passion. Maybe it’s because I am so passionate about so many things, especially personal development. My guess is if you’re reading this blog, you probably are too! Have you ever hit slumps in your job where passion was nowhere to be found? Unfortunately, this tends to happen from time to time. I know it’s happened to me recently. Follow these three steps, and you’ll be on your way to recovering the passion needed to thrive!

View the challenge as an opportunity
Last week I was tasked with producing a demonstration video that would cover three separate products. I needed to film in four separate locations, use four different cameras, and cover all of my material in one morning; half of which would be shot outside in the late December cold. The night before, I dreaded having to go in and go through the pain of managing the shoot. Instead of staying in a place of dread, I began to view it as an opportunity. This was an opportunity to produce one of the best videos I have ever made. With that result in mind, I tore through the shoot with passion. Not because it was particularly fun, but because I really wanted this to be a video that I could show to my boss, my friends, my wife, and even myself with pride. The end result was a video that gained more views in the first 24 hours than any of our previous videos.

Have the end in mind
Do you enjoy busy work? Me neither! One way to gain passion is to ask good questions. Try to discover why the work you are assigned is important. When we can see results for our work, it motivates us to attack the next assignment with passion. Why is what we are doing so important? What’s at stake? If your end is to simply bring home a paycheck, then I promise you won’t be happy, much less passionate! If you are spending 40 hours a week doing something you dread, then you need to consider a career change. But, that’s a topic for another day.

You bring the passion
I know, this post is supposed to help you regain passion at work, and here I am saying something that sounds a lot like “Just do it.” Just follow me for a second. The ability to bring passion, even when it’s hard, is one of the most important traits of effective people. Sometimes work is really hard. That’s why they call it work. Even work we enjoy has moments where we have to really push through to finish. It’s during these times that keeping the end in mind and viewing the challenge as an opportunity are important. When you do, passion is the byproduct. Passion is contagious.

Do you ever experience these slumps at work where passion is nowhere to be found? If so, what are some ways that you have regained passion? Please leave a comment below!