This is one in a series of interviews of self help experts and bloggers in the Tips from Masters series.
Dragos Roua is self-made entrepreneur from Romania who writes about personal development, productivity, and the art of getting things done at his blog www.dragosroua.com. Here Dragos shares some very deep insights on self-discovery and creating your desired reality.
1. How did you find your passion? What do you think is the best way to find it?
I don’t know, to be honest. My passion is in fact a bunch of passions. I can’t say I have only one passion or I follow only one path. I’m experimenting a lot. I love to write. I love to travel. I love to create value for other people. I don’t really think you should do something to find your passion, because your real passion is already inside you. Trying to find it outside your real being would be a waste of time. All you have to do is to become authentic. Expunge the social layers which took the authenticity away from you. Be who you are. Even if this is making feeling awkward. Especially if this is making yourself feeling awkward. That’s a sign your social conditioning is affected, you’re on the right track.
In my experience, if you really are authentic, at some point, something will click inside. Some slow development inside will suddenly flourish and make you aware of that exact “something” you wanted to do for so long. That’s what people are usually calling “finding your passion”. I think this is a process of self-discovery, not a process of world discovery. Traveling to find your passion, for instance, it’s working only if traveling is making yourself feeling amazingly good, if you’re authentic while you travel.
Finding your real passion is a question of finding your real self. In our current culture, this seems to be a rather de-cluttering process. You have to clean up your being from social noise. Cleanse your thinking. Get rid of social conditioning. Of course, that doesn’t mean you should become sociopathic. On the contrary, it means you have to internalize the process of social interaction and play it with your own rules. Being polite, for instance, should be a question of agreement, not rule. If both agree it’s ok to be late 30 minutes to a meeting, we’re being polite. More than that, we’re being authentic.
So, to answer your question: there is no best way to find your passion. There are only people who can get the best out of them.
2. How do you go from goal setting to implementation? How do you make sure that you take constant action toward your goals?
My approach was always close to what we usually call “cold turkey”. Just take immediate, massive and unstoppable action.
When I set my goal to quit smoking, the next second I quit smoking. I didn’t smoke in more than 3 years now and I don’t feel the need anymore. When I wanted to start my own company, the next second I was filling forms for registering my company. Did I had an office? Employees? Ideas? Nope. I had an immense desire to be my own boss and I trusted myself beyond any doubt. I knew I would find the means to make my business profitable. I knew I can provide value to other people. I trusted myself. All I had to learn was how to actually package that value using the rules of a company. I just had to learn the business vocabulary. Took me a few years, but after I got comfortable with it, my business sky rocketed.
Real goal contains the first step within. Sometimes, this first step is the most difficult. Like a plane which uses almost half of its fuel when it takes off. But you have to take off, otherwise you won’t reach your destination. This is what I call the first step and I think it’s an internal part of the goal. If you establish a goal which doesn’t have its first step within, you’re not going to make it. It’s either too difficult (like trying to goo to the Moon with a regular plane), either too foggy (like not really having a final destination or even an airport for your plane at that final destination). In both cases, it’s not going to work.
A goal is nothing but a milestone. A crossroad you need to reach in order to chose a new path. But you continue to walk all the time. You never stop and you don’t really go outside the road. Goals are just small decision making stops on your main road. So, in fact, you’re always walking toward a goal, you’re always implementing something. You never stop walking. You can get lost at times, but you never stop.
In other words, you’re always implementing some goal, even when you’re not, in which case you’re implementing your own failure.
3. How do you stay focused? How do you keep distractions at bay?
By knowing that my focus is actually creating my world. I strongly believe that the world doesn’t really exist outside us. It is created every second by our focus. If you read this interview right now, it exists in your life. If you look at the wall in front of you, your reality will be invaded by that wall, while the interview will leave your consciousness field. You may think, imagine, believe that the interview is still on the computer. But while your focus is on the wall, all you will have will be a representation of the interview (this is what our thoughts and beliefs are: tools for representing reality when we don’t interact directly with it).
So, as long as I know that all I need to create my desired reality, it becomes a simple question of choice. If I want to create abundance (like in money or resources) I just “watch” the areas which will most likely bring those resources. I put my focus there and, submissively, that part of reality grows.
I think what we call distractions are in fact unfinished decisions. We decided we want some capuccino while working on that report, but we didn’t actually finished that decision with a capuccino. So, its representation will haunt us until it gets manifested or until we decide it’s ok to live without it. It goes like this for everything in our lives. If we have unfinished decisions, like what we really want from our partner, what we really want from our career, we will never be able to reach a certain state of fulfillment in those areas. We will be distracted along the way.
Being focused means being in the flow, living your life. It’s just a question of choice: what exactly do you want to create? If you know the answer to that question, just focus on that answer and you won’t even feel there are such things in the world called distractions.
If you want to learn more from Lisis, visit her blog, Quest For Balance.
1. How did you find your passion? What do you think is the best way to find it?
I don’t know, to be honest. My passion is in fact a bunch of passions. I can’t say I have only one passion or I follow only one path. I’m experimenting a lot. I love to write. I love to travel. I love to create value for other people. I don’t really think you should do something to find your passion, because your real passion is already inside you. Trying to find it outside your real being would be a waste of time. All you have to do is to become authentic. Expunge the social layers which took the authenticity away from you. Be who you are. Even if this is making feeling awkward. Especially if this is making yourself feeling awkward. That’s a sign your social conditioning is affected, you’re on the right track.
In my experience, if you really are authentic, at some point, something will click inside. Some slow development inside will suddenly flourish and make you aware of that exact “something” you wanted to do for so long. That’s what people are usually calling “finding your passion”. I think this is a process of self-discovery, not a process of world discovery. Traveling to find your passion, for instance, it’s working only if traveling is making yourself feeling amazingly good, if you’re authentic while you travel.
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Jonathan Fields is author and career coach who in his recent book Career Renegade shares how to make a great living doing what you love. Jonathan writes at his blog, www.jonathanfields.com, about success, leadership, life balance and today he’ll share with you some profound tips on mindset training, focus and passion.
Gretchen Rubin is a best-selling writer whose new book, 
