When it comes to achieving professional success and personal fulfillment, we’re often glittered by the “follow your passion” cliché. The passion hypothesis basically states that the key to occupational happiness is to match your job to a pre-existing passion.
I too can be overly impressionable and idealistic as an ambitious 23-year old. Being a toddler in the workforce, I admit thoughtlessly inhaling the passion propaganda. However, several mishaps the past few years, in addition to the pandemic, gave me a huge reality check. And upon reading a few books and research, I think there needs to be a cautious narrative when we advise people to follow their dreams.
Why the passion hypothesis is flawed
Debunking the passion hypothesis isn’t a new thing. Cal Newport’s 2012 manifesto So Good They Can’t Ignore You clearly outlined that passion isn’t a necessity to a fulfilling life. Furthermore, a notable Stanford study concluded that a fixed “passion mindset” isn’t all that helpful to career and life progression. This undead trope blinds people from the fluid and dynamic nature of our interests. It also overlooks the grueling process of gaining skills and capital to attain those dreams.
1) Passion is neither fixed nor singular
Humans are dynamic and multi-faceted. We are constantly evolving and so are our interests. Succumbing ourselves to a singular passion forces us to put all our eggs into one basket, but then drop that basket when it becomes difficult to carry.
2) Passion is neither always innate nor natural
Unfortunately, many of our passions don’t guarantee income. Furthermore, some of us just don’t naturally have that “mystical inner calling”. The reality is, passion is often the side-effect of experience. Many young individuals like myself, fail to understand that years of skill-acquiring are needed before we can even hone into a career-specific dream.
3) Passion is a privileged concept
If you’re in a position to worry about passion, you’re likely in a much privileged circumstance than many. For a majority of the workforce, money is the sole driver of their careers before they can afford to make alternative decisions. While others aren’t physically capable to even consider their future. Similar to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, basic needs need to be covered before we can hit self-actualization. You need to be healthy, be financially capable, have a workable strategy before you can even write that musical where everyone’s a pony that poops butterflies.
How to balance passion and reality
1) Intersect your strengths with what the market values
Newport’s manifesto also introduces the Craftsman Mindset. In contrast to the passion mindset, being a craftsman involves focusing on what you can offer the world, rather than what the world can offer you. This helps us overcome the dissonance that arises when we can’t align our passions to our current job. The idea is to build a compelling career by excelling at a professional skill. As that skill turns into a strength, it becomes valuable to the market. Ultimately, it gives you leeway to trade those skills for either money or networks that can get you closer to your passion.
2) Reverse-engineer your life
Newport suggests reverse-engineering your life: envision how you want to live, then strategize backward from that vision. Your choices today will significantly differ whether you decide to live a quiet life or if you want to backpack around the world. Once you’ve backtracked your vision, notice the foundational needs you need to address. Upon that, you can better determine realistic timelines and milestones.
3) Embrace discomfort and boredom
The German word for passion “Leidenschaft,” literally translates to “the ability to endure hardship”. Passion is indeed fun at the idealization stage. But once it’s time to put in the work, that drive can quickly wane off. Hence, we need to tune into the craftsman mindset to focus on producing value when faced with the discomfort that arises.
Furthermore, once we’ve managed to turn our passion into something that pays the bills, mundanities will creep up. That’s why, Angela Duckworth, the author of Grit, provides this useful mental model to overcome this tendency: “Substituting nuance for novelty is what experts do, and that is why they are never bored.”
Concluding thoughts…
Many of us want to pursue our passions, and we’re commonly encouraged to do so. But the fact is we often don’t know how to. We might not even know what our passions are. So, to balance between passion and reality, focus on proactively creating value and developing skills. Rather than waiting for some mystical passionate force to guide your way, hone into your curiosity, and put in the work.
Passion comes after you put in the hard work to become excellent at something valuable, not before. In other words, what you do for a living is much less important than how you do it.
Cal newport, So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love
