If you’ve ever wondered, “How to ignite your passion?” you’re not alone. The good news is passion isn’t something reserved for a lucky few. It’s within you—you just need the tools to uncover it. Have you ever woken up and felt like you’re just going through the motions? Work, bills, responsibilities—it can all feel routine and draining. But deep down, we all crave something more: a life filled with passion, joy, and purpose.
How to ignite your passion? Living a life of passion doesn’t mean chasing thrills every day or quitting your job to follow wild dreams. It means aligning your daily life with what excites you, what gives you meaning, and what fuels your soul. When you live with passion and purpose, you feel more alive, energized, and fulfilled.
In this guide, we’ll walk through 8 powerful steps on how to live a life of passion—so you can ignite your inner fire and start living fully awake.
Billy F. Wroe is a native out of Sacramento, CA, with over 25 years of experience in retail, recruiting, sales, management, and analytics.
As an inspirational speaker and empowerment coach, he has worked with individuals, groups, and companies to help optimize productivity in leadership communication. Over the years, Billy has adopted the leadership concepts inspired by Stephen Covey, John Maxwell, Brian Tracy, Les Brown, and a host of other phenomenal inspirational speakers. His advanced comprehension of emotional intelligence has guided him in creating content that resonates with the heart of the human experience.
Igniting Your Passion: Pay Attention to What Makes You Come Alive
The first step on how to ignite your passion is noticing the moments when you feel most alive.
Ask yourself:
What activities make me lose track of time?
When do I feel energized instead of drained?
What do I look forward to doing the most?
Billy: My story is one that is filled with emotion from probably the time I was born, I was really a very emotional child. But I didn’t know how to navigate the emotions that I would experience. So a lot of times as a child, I would lash out, throwing temper tantrums, being stubborn and being hard headed. And over the years, as you get older, you learn some tools along the way.
In my 30s I started reflecting on my childhood and asked the question what was that all about? And as I reflected on my childhood, I really came to the overarching theme in the experiences that I was having in life. And really, it was I was the child who reached out and said, Hey, person sitting by yourself, do you want to play?
The person who if you can’t stand up for yourself, I’ll stand up for you. And the overarching theme became that I really just wanted to help people. But in order to help people, you have to understand people. And in order to understand people, you have to understand yourself. And that’s really how I began to discover my own, passion.
2. Reconnect with Your Childhood Dreams: Your Childhood Has Clues on Your Passion
Myrna: Yeah, that’s a good story. So, you, went back and looked into your childhood. Did you get into a lot of trouble? Is that the reason why you were reflecting on your childhood?
Billy: Yes, quite a bit of trouble. Not anything criminal or anything like that, but just random childhood shenanigans. The leadership part, I’ve actually been a natural leader, and my oldest son is a natural leader. But from the job perspective on how that leadership manifests from speaking to leaders and helping guide them on how to interact with their teams, to the job aspect of it, really, the job is a construct.
So, when looked at, fire your job, it’s does not specifically mean go in and quit your job, so that you can start working and making money in your, passion. It isn’t about firing the job like modalities that many of us hold on to either. Fire your job, means fire your job like mentality so you can discover how to ignite your passion.
Myrna: Okay, that’s good. Yes. Because one of my first books that I wrote was called “Minding your own business” in which I shared how to start your own business and be an entrepreneur. Are you talking about how to pursue your passion?
3. How to Ignite Your Passion: Explore New Experiences
If you’re struggling to ignite your passion, it may be because you haven’t explored enough yet. Passion is often discovered through curiosity. Here are the steps to find your passion.
Ways to explore:
Take classes in different areas (art, cooking, coding, fitness).
Volunteer for causes that interest you.
Travel or immerse yourself in new cultures.
Try hobbies outside your comfort zone.
Billy: If you carry you into your job, and you carry you home with you. So therefore, you if you’re truly trying to ignite passion, in your life, you’re carrying that, passion, into your job. You can discover your passion by what you carry home with you. However, the identity that you have, and that’s really why our, passion, is tied to is our identity.
Myrna: You say that passion has an identity. So how do we find our identity for a passion?
Billy: Oh, okay, so we’re going to fast forward to a portion of the book. In the book, there’s a tool that I provide called the, passion identity tool. It is how to live with passion and purpose in life. When I was a kid, I used to read these books that were like, choose your own adventure books, and you’d be able to read to a certain point that would give you a choice A or choice B. And based on where you went in the book, you would turn to 20 pages in or wherever the book told you to turn for the choice you made.
And that’s kind of how this, passion identity, tool works. It is a tool on how to find your passion now. It really flows through the basics of an activity, and it looks at it sees the priority level. So, the first priority level that stops you are the non-negotiable activities, the activities that you have to do. A non-negotiable activity for us would be breathing, we don’t have a choice, whether or not we want to breathe, or now we require oxygen.
4. How to Find Your Purpose: Align Passion with Purpose
Once you’ve identified interests, ask: How can this serve the greater purpose on how to live a passionate life?
A passion driven life is powerful, but passion with purpose is life changing. For example:
Love fitness? Your purpose might be helping others build healthy lifestyles.
Love teaching? Your purpose could be mentoring or empowering future leaders.
Love writing? Your purpose might be to inspire, educate, or entertain.
When passion meets purpose, your life gains deeper meaning.
So then once we get to those core activities, we move to finding our passion. And really, passion, is something that is designed to fulfill us when we’re operating and interacting with our, passion, and almost acts like a fusion energy that is constantly replenishing itself as it’s being utilized.
There’s a difference between liking to do something and being, passionate, about it. I like to watch sports on TV, but I’m not overly, passionate, about it. And so, if I liked to play ball when I was a kid, part of that is what did you like about playing ball?
Did you like the team aspect?
Did you get like the adrenaline from running?
Did you like scoring the touchdown?
Did you like the strategy behind it? Because just because you like to play ball as a child doesn’t mean that playing ball is your, passion, there can be something underlying that being fulfilled that you haven’t yet connected with.
5. Surround Yourself with Passionate People
Passion is contagious. If you want to live a life of passion, spend time with people who are excited about life.
Join communities or networking groups where people share your interests.
Follow inspiring voices online.
Connect with mentors who live with passion and purpose.
The right circle won’t just inspire you—they’ll also hold you accountable to pursue your passion.
And so a lot of times people will think that our, passion, has to align with our job. My, passion, is my profession as an analyst. I look at data all day long. But I’m not overly, passionate, about analysis and things like that. But what I am interested in is how things work. And being an analyst allows me to engage with that core.
I used to take apart toys now I take apart numbers. And so it’s being able to identify not just the activity, but what that activity is driving within you, and what is creating that resonance between you and the activity. Because then you can then take that activity and say, here’s how I’m going to apply it to this.
Myrna: I get that, it’s almost like the reason I became a life coach, because I wanted to help people understand that the mind is, very important to any kind of success. And I’ve always liked in my past, if I were to go back and say, What did I like? I always like when somebody comes to me and asked me for help us with is when a problem. I really, really enjoyed that. And I’m you know, and I am, I am a curious person. And that’s basically what you are, curious you wanted to know how things work do you hired your passion and became an Analyst.
I was thinking when you said, fire your job, meant quit your job. That’s not what you’re talking so right?
6. Fire your job
Billy: No, fire your job, does not mean quitting your, job. I share that in the first chapter in the book. We look at, firing your job, as living beyond our means. I addressed living beyond our means from the perspective of financially living beyond our means, like putting ourselves in bed, being behind living pay check to pay check and all those different things.
So when I say, fire your job, I’m talking about job mentality. The way the book is written, I have four chapters that deal with what I call the layoffs. And it’s really alleviating those job, like mentalities that will inevitably drag us away or lock us into an activity that is not related to our, passion. So going back to living beyond our means, if you have bills that are due, and you’re at a, job, that you’re miserable, that the bills are still going to be due.
So you’ll make decisions and sacrifices to stay in that, job. Even though you know it’s toxic and it’s not healthy for you, you’ll stay in it. You’ll stay in that relationship, even though you know it’s toxic and not healthy for you, you’ll stay in it. Because whatever the bill is, whatever the gain is that you need, is that important that you’ll stress yourself out and jeopardize your health and your well being to do so.
So that’s when I say, fire your job, what I mean and once you get to that aspect of that mindset, then you can begin to bring on the behaviors and the foundation that will allow you to hire your passion, and truly make that a priority in your life.
Myrna: All right, well, let’s be practical, Mr. Analyst. Okay. So you’ve just described like up 90% of the population. That is, you know people, hating their jobs, but they have to stay there because they have bills to pay. So, what is your solution? We know that they’re not, passionate, help us to bridge the gap. I mean, I’m pretty sure you go into it in detail in your book. But you know, just give me the concept.
Billy: The concept would be is know your worth. I left a, job. So I was an analyst, making decent money. And this is part of the journey of writing this book, I walked away from a job, I had not enough money in savings. I had no opportunity on the table, no offer of employment. So, I wasn’t one foot here, one foot there.
8. Sometimes you have to fire your job and walk away
I literally walked away from a job and went to zero. Now, that’s not my advice for everybody. But the reason I can do that, and the reason I was able to do that freely, with really no fear was because I understood my worth. I knew what my value was in the marketplace. That’s the benefit of being an analyst. You know how to analyze numbers and see the value and it’s like, hey, this skill set is valuable, I can market this anywhere.
I went like a month without a, job. But a month later, I had a, job, and I was making more money, I was in a lower cost of living environment. And since then, my financial stability has skyrocketed past where I was at when I was miserable. So practicality really what it is about is knowing your worth once you understand what your value is, you will not allow yourself to offer it at a discount.
I want to live this, passion driven lifestyle. And so I don’t turn off that inspiring voice, that leadership voice that guide that nurture that mentoring. I don’t turn that off. When I’m doing analytical things. I incorporate them into what I’m doing. When I go to work I bring that, passion, with me. When I leave work I bring that, passion, with me so my, passion, is always with me.
Myrna: I understand your, passion, is to help people or to mentor them or to support them. What do you want readers to walk away with it from after reading your book?
Billy: I would love to have readers walk away with is almost like a custom experience is hearing stories, not just my stories in my experiences, stories from other people as well. And those stories igniting reflection in themselves about their experiences and their journeys and their successes and their failures. Because I feel like that’s what inspires belief in the fact that we can truly lead with our, passion.
I would really love to see leaders or readers to leave with is that level of confidence that while I’ve gone through some things, whether you’re 18 years old, or you’re 70 years old, I’ve gone through some things, and I’ve come out stronger because of it. Now I’m going to purposely use that strength. That’s what I would like them to come out with.
From the perspective of the book, it really is broken down into sections the first section being:
The layoffs – removing behaviors that don’t serve our, passion, operate them normally as a distraction to our, passion.
The second level is, Hiring your passion. The interview section and when we start talking about the foundational things in which we can establish our, passion, upon.
Then there’s the now, which is when we start adopting it and hiring, passion, mentality things that are really going to help deal with what I perceived as the insecurity/Boehner ability of exposing something that we care about.
To being open and vulnerable.
10. Accept That Passion Evolves Over Time
Here’s the truth: your passion may change as you grow. That doesn’t mean you’ve “failed.” It means you’re evolving.
Maybe your passion in your 20s was adventure and travel, but in your 40s it becomes mentoring others. That’s normal. Instead of clinging to one passion, embrace life as a journey of discovering new ones.
Conclusion: Your Passion is Waiting
Finding your passion isn’t about luck—it’s about listening to yourself, trying new things, and aligning with what excites and fulfills you. Passion is the fuel; purpose is the direction; action is the spark.
Remember: you already have passion within you—it’s just waiting to be uncovered.
Start with one small step today, and you’ll be on your way to living a life filled with purpose and joy.
That’s for me what the book really is about. It’s about how to break down some of the constructs we may have founded our truths upon.
FAQ: How to Ignite Your Passion
1. Why is finding your passion important?
Because passion brings energy, motivation, and joy. It helps you live with purpose instead of just existing on autopilot.
2. What if I don’t know what I’m passionate about?
That’s normal. Start by noticing what excites you, reconnecting with your childhood interests, and exploring new experiences. Passion often reveals itself gradually.
3. Can I turn my passion into a career?
Yes—but not always immediately. Many people start pursuing passion as a side project before transitioning it into a full-time career.
4. What if my passion changes over time?
That’s okay. Passion evolves with life stages. Embrace the change as part of your growth journey.
5. How long does it take to find your passion?
It varies for everyone. The key is to stay curious, keep experimenting, and take small consistent steps. Passion often reveals itself over time, not overnight.
Additional Resources
Ready to start your journey? Download my free guide on Living with Purpose and Passion and discover practical tools to ignite joy in your everyday life.
