During the Farm Owners Academy June 2023 Deep Dive, I ran a session on ‘opening up to your potential’. I ran the same session in 2020 online, so I was unaware
of the reactions some people had to certain questions I asked.

I have had a number of people share that they felt disturbed by these two questions.

1. What are your strengths?

2. What is your passion?

I didn’t know I was burned out when my mother passed away in2016. I was too busy to notice. Losing the person who demonstrated the most
love for me left me acutely aware of my need for love to come from outside of
myself, resulting in a deep sense of loss.

The upside? It stopped me in my tracks. I couldn't keep going. I collapsed into grief – literally, often on the laundry floor, perhaps
because no one else in my house frequented that room at the time.

I stopped constantly doing and thinking and I finally started feeling, as painful as it was.

When the heartache gradually lightened, I was led to solutions. The first was a book by Rebecca Campbell, Light is the New Black. It
may have been in those pages that I was invited to think about my strengths.

I didn’t know. I had become so accustomed to being hard on myself, cracking the whip to always be better, which was never good enough,
that what I was good at escaped me. I had to (awkwardly) ask other people.

“Tenacious”, a friend told me. It was true, a blessing, a curse. Since then, I realize I have chosen new strengths to develop that are
all states of being – joyful, loving, accepting, grateful, and kind.

My point is – you get to choose your strengths, and they can change over time.

What I realize now about my passions is that I always started something (usually a business until recently when I allowed myself
hobbies) because I was passionate about it. However, no matter how much you
love something, I believe it is possible to OVER do it.

If you find it hard to know what you’re passionate about, it may be because you have slipped into the routine of doing too much of it.

Life is about change and variety. What can you give up to replace with something new (including rest)?

Think back to the last time you were really, really happy.Don’t beat yourself up about how far back you have to go. What were you like?
What did you do? What made you laugh?

How can you inject some of this into your life now?

When did you get so serious?

Your passion doesn’t have to be work-related. Discover what feels good and start to insert it into your life. The more you spend time
feeling good, the more ideas you will have about what else would feel good.

Love

Tracy x