Whenever we have a series of overcast and rainy days, it’s easy for me to succumb to the gloom and start to feel down. I began to feel sorry for myself this morning when I assessed that I’m not where I want to be on my life journey in a number of ways.

Yes, I’ve enjoyed many wonderful life experiences and reached many of my life goals. As a matter of fact, I now focus my work on helping others create happiness in their lives. And yet, because I’m human, I get sometimes get seduced into looking at the glass as half empty sometimes instead of half full.

When I get into such a funk, I don’t like it at first. Sometimes it hurts a lot. But then I realize that it is a blessing. It keeps me humble and it gives me a project from which I know I’ll eventually emerge as a stronger person and a better coach and writer. Not only that, my seeking for solutions causes me to test the many techniques I know are available. That way when I share ideas with you, they come from a real place, not a theory.

One thing that I do when I get into these moods is search for motivation and words of encouragement. This morning I was drawn to visit one of my favorite websites, TED, Technology Education and Design and there listened to Steve Jobs when he delivered the commencement speech at Stanford in 2005. I’ve heard it before, but evidently needed to hear it again.

The point that resonated with me was the idea that sometimes you have to drop out in order to drop into what you are called to do. I think about that in my life when I think of endeavors I abandoned because I no longer had passion for them. There are other times when a project appeared to be a failure, but later I saw that it freed me up to something even greater. He urges us to trust the process and the path we are on when we follow our passion.

I invite you to listen to Steve share three poignant stories from his life. Draw from his stories the lesson that will make a difference in your life.