I’m so excited to introduce you to my friend, Barrie Davenport, today! You may already know her from her amazing blog, Live Bold and Bloom – a wonderful site to help you embrace your life. Barrie has been a sweet friend and mentor to me – she has a huge heart and so much valuable insight.
Barrie is passionate about helping others tap into their own passion. And she has a brand-new site: Barrie Davenport.com, which is dedicated to doing exactly that! She’s an amazing person, and I’m so exited to share our interview with you here.
Congratulations on your site! It’s beautiful, and I know it will help many tap into their own passion. What inspired you to create a site devoted solely to supporting people in finding and living their passion?
I began my original blog, Live Bold and Bloom, as a way to support people in various aspects of personal growth and evolution. But as I got to know my readers, I saw that there was a real hunger for information about how to make their lives happier, more interesting, and more passionate. I wrote some articles on this topic, but I wanted to offer people a resource that would provide more in-depth support and information. Finding and living your life passion can be overwhelming and confusing for many people. I have been through the process myself and work with many people through my coaching business helping them uncover their passions. So I knew I had more to offer on the topic.
What is one thing someone can do right now if they just aren’t sure how to tap into their passion?
They can start by making a time commitment every week to do the important self-work necessary for uncovering their passion. They need to give themselves the gift of 1-2 hours a week where they can find a quiet place for introspection and take the actions necessary to begin this journey. Then, one of the first things I ask my clients to do on their passion search is to define their top five core values. These are the most important principles around which they wish to center their lives and make choices and decisions. You will use these core values as a guidepost for making decisions around your life passion. This is a foundational piece of the journey.
You are a shining example of someone who is living passionately and on purpose. Can you share a bit about your journey toward realizing what you were passionate about and then embracing and living it?
I had a previous 20+ year career in public relations, both in the corporate and agency worlds and with my own consultancy. My oldest daughter became quite passionate about ballet and as a young teenager decided she wanted to pursue a career as a dancer. This required my driving her 60 miles round trip twice a day to train at her studio. I put my PR business on hold while I supported her and was raising my two other children. When she left home, and I had more time to pursue my PR career again, I found that I had no energy or motivation for it any longer. The work felt meaningless, but I had no idea what else I could or should do. I was in my 40s and felt it was too late to start over. But my restlessness kept pushing me, and I began a search for something that would give me the same passion that I saw in my daughter and my former PR clients. I took assessments, researched, read books, took workshops, experimented with various pursuits, and ultimately learned that my passion was helping others create better, more passionate lives for themselves. I went back to school to get certified as a personal coach and created a personal development blog called Live Bold and Bloom. And recently I’ve launched a new site, Barrie Davenport.com, devoted specifically to helping others uncover and live their life passions. I love my work – I wake up every day with enthusiasm and a sense of purpose. It’s wonderful!
Besides helping others live more passionately, what makes you come alive?
Spending time with my friends and family — laughing, eating together, and just talking. I love riding my bike along the river near my house, hiking and spending time outside in nature. And I really feel passionate about travel. Experiencing new places I’ve never seen before is for me a peak experience. I’ve always felt passionate about the arts, especially since both of my daughters are ballet dancers and my son is a musician. I’ve served on the boards of local arts venues and organizations and enjoy theater, concerts, and dance performances. And I love writing. I write every day, whether it’s an article for one of my sites, working on a book, or writing for someone else. Writing definitely provides that “flow” experience for me.
I’m so excited for your new book and ecourse to come out! Can you share more about them with us?
The book is called The 52-Week Life Passion Project and includes weekly lessons and action steps to help you uncover your life passion by the end of a year.
Each weekly lesson leads you on a journey of deeper self-awareness so that you gain more clarity on who you are, what you want in life, and how to go about getting it. Each lesson concludes with specific actions and assignments that you will complete during the week. The lessons and actions are designed to be followed sequentially so that you are working steadily toward uncovering your life passion and creating a realistic plan to live it in a way that works best for you and your life.
The lessons in the book represent the same techniques and self-discovery process I used in finding and living my own life passion and the work I conduct with personal coaching clients and in life passion workshops.
The course is called the Path to Passion, and it will be a 4-week interactive course walking participants through the process of uncovering their passion through self-discovery, uncovering exactly what you want for your life, and then taking actions to begin to explore various options that fit in with your lifestyle. It will include articles, videos, podcasts, as well as live webinars and a support forum. And I will have several guest experts who will be participating. This is an intensive course that is meant for those who are ready to commit several hours a week to finding their life passion.
In your free Passion Myths guide, you share 6 misconceptions about finding and living your passion. Can you share one of them here?
The most common misconception about life passion is the belief that it isn’t possible to find it. After years of living a boring or uninspired life, many people assume they are trapped by their responsibilities and commitments. They may have made a few small efforts at finding something that makes them happier, but they don’t really have any idea how to go about it. And once they meet a roadblock, it feels too overwhelming and difficult. So they resign themselves to the life they have. They are too busy and fearful to attempt real change. But once you understand how to proceed and what is involved in first uncovering your passion, and then integrating it into your life, you can feel safer about undertaking the journey without disrupting your entire life.
***Be sure to download the free guide here.***
What does your soul want you to know?
That my life purpose is to support people in personal evolution, self-awareness, and creative living. My personal struggles and successes with these things in my own life have provided me some insights and strategies that I know can help others. My soul or intuition, coupled with curiosity and persistence, have led me on this path, and now I find myself propelled on it by my passion for what I’m doing.
Is there anything else you would like to share?
I hope that anyone reading this who is struggling with their life, feeling restless or bored or unhappy, will walk away with some hope that a better life is possible. Everyone has a passion. It may be buried or undiscovered, but it is there. It may require some sacrifice, persistence, and flexibility to make it happen, but it is so worth the effort. Having a life passion infuses every part of your life with joy and a positive outlook. One of my favorite quotes (by Terri Guillemets) is this: “Chase down your passion like it’s the last bus of the night.” You will never regret it.
Barrie Davenport is a life passion coach, author, and founder of BarrieDavenport.com, a site devoted to helping people uncover and live their life passions. She is the author of The 52-Week Life Passion Project, to be released November 2012.’
This post first appeared on Soul Speak.