Don’t Follow Your Passion, Lead It

There’s a really big myth in life. They say follow your passion and you will become successful. As a career and business strategy, this advice is flawed. Because it can lead to a sense of entitlement and poor work ethic, as well as depression when reality doesn’t quite match up to your dream career.

What I’ve learned is that passion can materialise after you get stuck into working on something and focus on becoming really good at it. Having a passion for something and being able to make a career out of it are two very different things. It’s not impossible but quite rare.

I’ve written about being lucky and finding my passion and my calling early. But the truth is that I’ve only stumbled upon these passions as a by-product of the effort I put into a particular area.

How I’d Found My Passion/s

When I was 16 I was a huge fan of a German band Scooter. I had all of their albums and singles, and I was so ‘passionate’ about their music that I wanted to share it with others.

I have hand-built a fan website using nothing but Notepad and a copy of PaintShop Pro. For the next 4 years, I continued to maintain a community of 100+ forum members, kept on redesigning, improving and rebuilding the website, and I have found a passion for website design in the process.

Making friends with the forum members I’ve also joined a relatively new platform at the time, DeviantArt (founded in 2000). As many of my new-found online friends, I started posting my snaps I had taken with my old film camera. And that’s how I discovered another passion and a skill I could learn to keep getting better at – photography.

I have another half a dozen examples like these about how I’ve discovered and/or developed a passion for other skills. Theoretically, they all could be monetised.

Following Your Passion Is Alluring

It is an alluring prospect – working in a career or business that you are passionate about. ‘It doesn’t even feel like work’ – they tell you.

I know that when I was a teenager, just like every other young person I imagined getting paid for playing sports, video games or doodling my heart out. A study completed by the University of Quebec found that 84 percent of college students had passions. Unsurprisingly, 90 percent of these passions were sports, music, and art.

However, there is only so much demand for professional athletes, musicians, and artists. Only about 3 percent of all available jobs are in these sectors, and the competition is fierce. Just because I was passionate about basketball at 18, doesn’t mean that I would become the next Michael Jordan.

The truth is, passions change over time. That’s another proven phenomenon. So chasing your passions might leave you in a constant loop of career changes.

The Problem with Following Your Passion

We can all have many passions. As I have just shared with you, I have a few of my own. But I won’t necessarily be focusing on making money through all of my passions.

And that’s the point.

You can pursue any passion you want, but you shouldn’t feel entitled to earn money from it. Sometimes a passion should just be left as a ‘hobby’ or your ‘special talent’ for you to enjoy, rather than trying to turn it into a money-making machine.

On the flip side, it’s very common for passion to develop after you’ve put in the hours of work into crafting and perfecting a certain skill. So you can still end up in a career or business of your dreams, it’s just that, counterintuitively, passion may come second.

Become a Conduit For Life’s Passion

When people jump into a career or open a business looking to appease their passion, they are coming from a ‘what can the world do for me’ perspective. There is a sense of entitlement that since they are passionate, money and admiration should follow.

Instead, we should be focusing on what we can do for the world. What skills and abilities do we have and are good at, or could get better at, that can help someone else solve a problem or make their life easier? When you are committing yourself to the benefit of others in this way, passion will arrive as a result of your dedication to this cause.

And, as you get better at your skill, your passion will be further reinforced. Why? Because it feels amazing to be really good at something and seeing your efforts improve someone else’s life.

How do you get the best of both worlds?

In late 2017 I was standing by Horseshoe Falls. That’s the largest of the three Niagara Falls.

The water roared like mad. I could barely hear myself think. As I was taking in the magnitude of the force behind the water current I couldn’t help but get caught up in its energy. I decided to surrender and just let its force run through me. Not literally, but figuratively participate in the moment and let the current give me whatever it had to offer.

Later that day I decided that I would implement this type of practice in all of my activities. Including my work. I pledged to show up fully whenever presented with a task or a challenge, no matter how seemingly tedious or unimportant to me. Let the energy and work flow through me.

And do you know what I’ve found?

Becoming a conduit for life’s energy is one of the quickest ways to gain a passion for something. You just can’t help but become passionate when you surrender yourself and join the momentum of life’s force and energy.

Focus On Finding Your Ikigai

Many years after building my first website, I realised that intuitively I was applying some of the Ikigai principles in building my dream life.

In Ikigai, having a passion for something is only one small part of ‘having a reason for being’. You must also combine that with what you are good at, what the world needs and what you can be paid for.

It’s the balance and the relationship of all of those components that I managed to capture in my own career discovery. Everything is connected. It is possible to be passionate, live a life of consequence and use a business or a career as a medium for life’s expression.

Discovering your Ikigai will lead you to a feeling of peace and lasting happiness that can sustain your entire life. You just need to commit, participate wholly in whatever endeavour you choose to pursue.

I’ve ended up discovering that helping people solve their problems and live to their highest potential is my passion. Website design, branding, photography, and creativity are simply the chosen mediums that let me express my passion and combine all four Ikigai principles.

Here Are Some Practical Steps to Developing a Satisfying Career

1. Early on, explore different skills and areas you might be good at
2. Try out skills that you feel will be engaging to you
3. Evaluate how different skills might benefit others and what you could be paid for
4. Enjoy becoming a master of the skills that resonate most with you
5. As you become a master of some skills continue evaluating if passion develops
6. Continue to learn new skills even as you’re mastering others

Now Over To You

How do you create passion in your life? I want to hear about your experiences with it – reach out via email or on Instagram and let’s get a discussion going!

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