If you want to find your vocational passion, it has to begin with a question: What is most important to you? This may be most important question you will ever ask yourself. You need to look deep inside yourself to turn your vague longings into tangible goals, with real paths toward achieving them.

Once you answer question and see path that answers light for you, then it’s time to summon courage to make transition.

Matt Vande Voorde walked away from an executive position at a large bank to follow what he prized most in his life: magazine publishing. His dream was to one day publish a magazine targeted at helping people with disabilities use Internet. Today, Matt is proud publisher of Accessible Content Magazine.

Jim Goebelbecker was tired of long hours selling products that he didn’t care about. He prized his family and nonprofit work. He also took a risk and never looked back. Today, Jim is an executive with a large nonprofit on east coast. He works just 10 minutes away from his home. Five steps to discover and follow your passion

Making this level of change in your life isn’t an overnight process. Once you understand that a change is essential to making rest of your life matter, you can follow this simple process to move your dreams and desires into concrete actions.

Evaluate what you want. Ask big questions and answer them honestly. Why lie to yourself?

Envision your future. You need to visualize what you’re dreaming about. Then, develop a concrete understanding of what it will take to get there.

Tune out negative feedback. Everyone will try to talk you out of doing this. Listen to yourself.

Assess your risks. Take an inventory of your assets, obligations, and health. Then, make necessary adjustments that will minimize impact and risk of making a major life change.

Take small steps. You don’t have to quit tomorrow. You can start in small ways by doing research on your dream vocation, maybe taking a class. Or you can make small lifestyle changes to reduce your personal “burn rate.”

In end, you must give yourself permission to follow your heart. That’s what I did. So did Matt, Jim, and so many others. They now jump out of bed each morning looking forward to a day of vocational passion. You can have this feeling too. First, you must decide what’s really most important.

And want are firm’s trying to find out about you? Leadership. Honesty. Trustworthiness.

You can practice with a friend or family member but they may not be much better than you. So how do you practice you presentation and get immediate feedback in order to improve your presentation and demonstrate these attributes?

Toastmasters (www.toastmasters.org) offers people an opportunity to practice how to speak throughout their program. Whether you answer extemporaneous questions off cuff for 1-2 minutes in Table Topics (“It’s warm! It’s summer! People start to go to beach and spending time outdoors. Tell us about a time you had fun at beach, Jeff.” Notice that you only find out when you will speak at end when you hear your name) or by doing actual 4-6 minute speeches, Toastmasters offers concrete opportunities to get used to being “on spot” as happens in an interview. It also gives you an opportunity to observe others and learn from them and from evaluations that are given.

There are Toastmasters clubs throughout world. To find one, you can go to http://www.toastmasters.org/find/.

Jeff Altman Concepts in Staffing jeffaltman@cisny.com