YAY, it’s a guest post from Neil Pasricha of 1000 Awesome Things! Check out three keys to doing what you love and start doing them in a big way. Speaking of awesome, be sure to check out his blog and book after the post.  Cheers to an awesome week!

1. ATTITUDE

Life’s not always pretty — whether it’s buzz saws chopping forests, sea levels rising high, suicide bombers blowing up trains, or unemployment rates zooming sky high, it’s just really heavy. And a lot of us have personal issues on top. I mean, for me over the lifetime of 1000 Awesome Things I’ve had my best friend take his own life and my marriage crumble to dust.

But although we’re all gonna get lumps and we’re all gonna get bumps, I really do think that we’ve always got an attitude option in dark times. We can:

i) Twirl and swirl in gloomy darkness forever, or

ii) Grieve and face the future with newly sober eyes.

I guess my point is that we get to choose our attitude. We get to choose our outlook. We get to choose how we face the future and how we go about our day. So — the first awesome way to do what you love? Choose your attitude. And pick a good one.

2. AWARENESS

I love hanging out with three-year-olds. Honestly, I just love the way they see the world — whether it’s staring slack-jawed at their first baseball game, leaning over a slug on the sidewalk, or grabbing a handful of dandelions for the centerpiece at the family dinner. I love how full of wonder they are when they’re seeing the world for the first time. I think to do what you love you’ve got to be able to see the wonder in the little things and just remember we’re the only species on the only life-giving rock with so many awesome things around us — whether it’s guitar jams, candied hams, foreign architecture, local agriculture, Grandma hugs, or sidewalk slugs.

Seeing the world and being aware of your surroundings — and occasionally stepping back to stare at them with jaw-dropping wonder — is a great way to follow your instincts and start doing what you love.

3. AUTHENTICITY

It’s all about being yourself.

I mean, first up: we’ve all got insecurities. We all get worried about our looks, our diet, our financial future. We’re all nervous on dates, blush around crushes, and wish we didn’t do this while wishing we did do that.

But that’s why it’s so relaxing to just… be yourself. Be you and be cool with it. The sooner we get to the point of saying “I like myself”, the sooner so many great things happen that help us do what we love.

After all, when we’re ourselves we’ll probably spend more time doing things we like without worrying about it. And going to places we enjoy and find interesting. And meeting interesting people at those interesting places. We stop worrying about putting on airs and dressing ourselves up and become comfortable laughing late with good friends in sweatpants and bedhead.

Being authentic and being yourself is an amazing feeling and I think it’s a great big step towards doing what you love.

In Spring, 2008, office worker Neil Pasricha created the blog 1000 Awesome Things, a daily chronicle of all things good. After very humble beginnings the blog started getting hundreds and then thousands and then tens of thousands of hits daily and was named one of PC Magazine’s Top 100 Sites and won two Webby Awards for Best Blog. 1000 Awesome Things sheds light on day-to-day things in life, celebrating everything from

#981 Wearing underwear from just out of the dryer to

#858 The other side of the pillow to

#773 Watching your odometer click over a major milestone.

This April, Pasricha will take 1000 Awesome Things to the next step when he turns the award-winning blog into THE BOOK OF AWESOME, a 400-page hardcover published by AEB/Putnam, a division of Penguin Publishing.

Photo by code poet