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finding your why

Identify and Maintain Passion For Our Work

The general desire or willingness of someone to do something. 

A strong feeling of enthusiasm or excitement either for something or about doing something.

Within the scope of YPR, asset mapping can assist in identifying passion for the work that is done. Asset mapping is a great way to test any barriers or gaps within services your community has. Once the avenues of need are identified, you can choose what area of need aligns with your passion.

Throughout the chapter’s advocacy project, the need to maintain passion can be real. Noticing the need to sustain passion is a true indication you may need some self-care time. Take a look at the Health and Wellness document to get an idea of what self-care is for you, how to implement self-care and the YPR wellness program.

1. Understand Your Impact: Taking a look at the chapter data will allow you to see the impacted population of your advocacy efforts.

2. Embrace the Adventure and Take Risks: Send out that email, make that phone call! The worst one can say is no, and that’s okay! Go speak at town halls, testify at the state level, and so on!

3. Keep Passionate Company: Collaborate with community stakeholders and join workgroup meetings that align with your advocacy efforts. This can be done by revisiting the asset map you created.

4. Don’t Label Yourself as an Expert: The world of recovery is always changing. Please create space to keep learning all of the new avenues, outlooks, and areas of interest.

5. Always Show Honesty, Moral Principles, and Willingness to Collaborate.

6. Relinquish Perfectionism: Allowing mistakes and room for improvement is key to maintaining self-improvement.

7. Change Things Up: Get with stakeholders and brainstorm items of action. Create ideas and maybe reassess Asset Mapping.

8. Read Up on Intrinsic Motivation.

9. Know Your “Why”: Simon Sinek speaks about “our why,” which is the purpose, cause, or belief that drives every one of us. The core of our capacity as leaders lies in our ability to identify our Why and always return to it as a source of motivation. Sometimes, when things get challenging, it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture; however, if we’ve really thought about WHY we’re doing something, the “what” and “how” become clearer and more sustainable.