As I’ve spent my last week In New Orleans, talking to a lot of people, seeing a lot of fantastic music, the subject of passion and desire is fresh on my mind. I hadn’t been here since before Katrina and it was profoundly touching to see the city in its new skin: fresh, strong and maybe more intoxicating and self-assured than ever.

For NOLA, Katrina in some ways was the catalyst to make the city and its people look at what they were made of, and how they wanted to come back.

For how many of us will it take close to a Category 5 hurricane to dislodge ourselves from our daily grind and look at what we are made of and how we want to come back?

If you are not 100% satisfied with how you live your life and what you are committed to, what will it take for you to deconstruct and reinvent?

Sometimes you need a shock to the system, go radical and burn the ship. If you are not an action taker and tend to take the slow and safe route, you may never get there.

Here are some ways to peel back the layers so you can build your courage and position yourself for kicking things up a notch:

Give your desire and passion room to exist. If you really want something but you keep squelching it because it makes no practical sense to you (yet!), you can never really find out what you are about.
Play the “what if” game. Just for a moment, assume you have no barriers and limitations. Where would it take you?
Practice Faith. Desire backed by Faith is all the more powerful. Start with, “what do I want to believe in?” Then practice that scenario several times a day until it starts feeling real and doable.

FAITH is the head chemist of the mind. When FAITH is blended with the vibration of thought, the subconscious mind instantly picks up the vibration, translates it into its spiritual equivalent, and transmits it to Infinite Intelligence, as in the case of prayer.—Napoleon Hill