This is DISRUPT #8 - Passion is built. Not Found

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Let me start by saying this: Passion is cliché.

The modern concept of passion is heavily misunderstood. It’s also heavily overused.

Combine the overuse and misunderstanding of the passion and it provides a false idea of what a meaningful life is for those who want to live a meaningful life filled with joyful fulfillment.

It provides a false idea of achieving what one considers to be success.

“Find your passion” is common advice but it is not good advice.

“Find your passion” implies that one day, you’ll just happen to stumble upon what you’re passionate about. It implies that there will be a golden moment, a moment of revelation where suddenly what you want to do in life becomes so clear that you can’t neglect it. This common notion that one-day “passion” will just happen to land on someone’s lap is incorrect.

“Find your passion” is overused in the sense that you have people expecting to be passionate about something the moment they get to it. But then eventually they see that they really aren’t excited, interested, or passionate about something at all.

“Oh, this isn’t for me”

And they quit.

They don’t realize that true passion is built over time. They don’t realize that true passion isn’t something that is suddenly found.

Let’s say we have a person named Tim.

Tim wants to start going to the gym but he’s never been to one before. Either way, he decides to go. He’s excited and ready to roll. He even went out of his way to buy supplements to improve his performance. He goes in for his first day and begins his 1st exercise. So far so good. Then he completes his 2nd. He realizes he’s getting a little bored. A little too much monotony. Tim completes his 3rd exercise. He’s getting pretty tired and sees that he isn’t necessarily fit. He also isn’t enjoying his time there. He looks around and sees others around him focused on their workout. They seem to be enjoying what they do with a sense of purpose. But Tim sees that he doesn’t feel that way with the gym. He begins to feel discouraged. Tim completes his 4th exercise. He’s done for the day and he goes back home.

He does this for a week. On his first week, he goes 3 times. After this week, Tim hasn’t found enjoyment by going to the gym. He hasn’t found much that he likes about the gym itself. He isn’t passionate like the other people he sees at the gym. He rationalizes that the “gym isn’t for him” and he decides to quit.

Tim failed to stick it through and when things were about to fall into place for him, he quit as he didn’t find a sense of enjoyment or passion. He held the belief that if the gym was for him, then he would enjoy it from the start.

The premise of “Find your passion” yields the implication that you’ll suddenly find passion. Not develop it.

That belief is incorrect.

Keep this idea in mind: Passion is built, not found
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Passion is built

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True passion isn’t a feeling of excitement, interest, or curiosity towards something. Excitement, interest, and curiosity towards something can serve as an indicator that there is potential for passion within a certain domain of interest. But just like every single feeling that we experience, excitement, interest, and curiosity can all go away but then come back again.

It’s important to differentiate the feeling of passion vs. true passion. The feeling of passion is only an emotional state or a sensation that you feel when you’re deeply interested or enthusiastic about something. It can go away and it can come back. A momentary feeling of passion is unreliable for gauging whether you’re truly passionate about something or not. Especially if a feeling of passion is the only reason you stay committed to something. What would you do when the fleeting feeling of passion goes away?

Quit just like Tim did?

Momentary feelings of passion, excitement, interest, or curiosity are very useful as they can indicate the beginning of something great and highlight the potential for the development of true passion. They also help keep you attached to what you may have committed to. All of these feelings are interconnected with true passion but don’t represent what true passion is.

Now don’t get me wrong, feeling passionate in the moment is amazing. But true passion isn’t about momentary emotions. It’s about remaining committed and consistent with a high sense of innate drive. True passion is most definitely not the byproduct of external motivation. A lot of things that are a byproduct of external motivation seem to be counter-productive to real success.

Just like most things that are good in life and worth striving for, passion compounds over time from actions taken on a consistent basis.

You cannot just create passion out of nowhere. A person does not write down their ideal life and begin living it passionately. A person creates passion by living through life and iterating on their present moment in order to narrow down on what truly yields their fulfillment.

Passion is the byproduct of building on something that is intrinsically meaningful to one’s own self on a consistent basis.

Let’s dive in a little deeper.

As I mentioned earlier, excitement, curiosity, and interest towards something can spark the beginning of something great and highlight the potential for passion to arise given consistent action. They can act as powerful motivators to explore an area further. Continuous curiosity, excitement, and genuine interest as you continue to dive in a specific domain of interest is what keeps you going. They’re perquisites for true passion.

Without these intrinsic drivers, we might not see a reason to keep diving into a domain of interest. If it doesn’t intrinsically provide something to us, we’d eventually become disengaged. No matter how “great” something can seem on an external basis, it isn’t actually great unless we intrinsically see it to be great.

Pay attention and remain aware of what you feel curious, interested, and excited about. They mark new beginnings. You must begin there.

But keep in mind, that expectations of always feeling excited, curious, and enthusiastic towards something is what kills the potential for passion to arise. Most things in life that are worth chasing require a person to undergo challenges and struggle if they want to achieve any type of growth within a specific domain of interest. Aside from the need for challenge and struggle for growth, challenge and struggle are also needed for passion to arise. We need to overcome challenge and struggle to not only grow but also develop a sense of passion. If we don’t struggle for what we enjoy, we don’t really get passion. We just get momentary feelings of happiness that quickly disappear.

In your life, you may have noticed this trend:

After every ‘high’ you experience in life follows a ‘low’. After every ‘low’ in life, given that you take proper action to address that ‘low’ a ‘high’ follows.

Whenever we set our minds to something new, we’re in a ‘high’ of life. At least if you enjoy what you’re diving into. It’s something new. You’re curious, interested, and excited to dive into this new endeavor. You’re ready for a period of intensity. But after this temporary ‘high’ in life, a ‘low’ follows. A period where the curiosity, interest, and excitement aren’t as intense as they once were when you first started. In fact, things begin to feel a little hard.

You’re in a period where you need to be consistent, you haven’t seen results yet. You haven’t developed passion yet. You’re in a period of uncertainty.

Whenever you find yourself in this period of life you encounter a period of struggle. What you need to do is to remain consistent and committed with a high degree of tenacity. To hold on firmly to what you’ve committed to.

You need to get rid of cognitive dissonance, the useless noise in the background that distracts you, and be cognitively consistent towards your craft.

The positive struggle for what you enjoy is what brings passion, you don’t only stick with something through the ‘highs’ but through the ‘lows’ as well.

You must be willing to go through struggle and challenge. And even if you don’t feel like you’re willing to, struggle anyway. You might not find meaning in the struggle at first. That’s completely normal.

Eventually, if you remain committed and focused on your craft, after every victory, after every challenge that is overcome, you’ll begin to feel a sense of accomplishment, whether you see external results or not. You’ll feel a sense of accomplishment not because of the external results but because you’re surpassing every internal limit that you’ve unconsciously set on yourself. Once this sense of accomplishment continues to build and compound over a sufficient period of time, you’ll begin to see value in the process itself. You’ll clearly see that every single ‘victory’ you’ve been through came after a period of struggle. So then you begin to affirm every single challenge you face since overcoming a period of struggle is what brings joyful fulfillment within your lives.

Amor Fati is a latin phrase that translates to love of fate. That one wants nothing different in their life, they affirm the suffering and the good that follows. Not merely enduring through the suffering of life, but loving it. A full and natural embodiment of Amor Fati, can indicate that one has developed a genuine passion towards something.
Practicing Amor Fati, and being aware of the good that suffering brings upon, can help you develop a higher love for life and help you affirm the ‘low’ moments of life. So begin to practice it.

Given an affirmation of the struggle and the affirmation of the entirety of the process, external success will become a byproduct of what you do. It won’t be your point of focus, it will be the byproduct of your point of focus. The byproduct of focusing on the process. When you focus on the process, you don’t chase success, it comes to you. At this point, seeing external success will only begin to further motivate you to focus on the process and remain committed to the path towards growth.

Combine this with the fact that your craft is something you genuinely feel curious, interested, and excited about, you’ll begin to develop a high sense of passion towards what you’ve decided to commit to. You’ll begin to enjoy the ‘lows’ as those ‘lows’ are something that are worth struggling for.

To counter the suffering in life, we give it meaning by providing something worth struggling for. Then passion will begin to grow, from a seed to a flower.

I’ve noticed that the people who’re the most successful in life fully embrace the struggle. They don’t prioritize success, they just want to keep playing their game. They’re completely obsessed with their game, the success they achieve is just an indicator that they’re playing the game they love correctly.

This is how passion is built. Passion is not found.

But just like anything good in life, it takes time to create a sense of passion in life. Our brains don’t get rewired so easily. Or quickly. Neuroplasticity takes time.

Given this, it doesn’t make sense to chase passion or put a focus on it. Just let it compound over time.
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Passion is a Paradox
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Just how I mentioned earlier, passion is built.

But you shouldn’t focus on building passion. You shouldn’t chase passion.

The paradox is - Passion is built, yet if you chase passion, it’ll dissipate. You shouldn’t forcefully build passion and put intense focus on it.

Passion has to have a good level of authenticity. This is exactly why it’s important to focus on what makes you curious, excited, and keeps you interested. The presence of intrinsic drivers indicates authenticity. If you try to build passion, it ceases to be authentic. Passion is natural. Passion should follow what you do. Chasing a passion can be just like chasing happiness. If you pursue it, you’re less likely to achieve it

A child doesn’t have to ask the question "How do I have fun?". They just begin to play and let the fun come to them. Similarly, we should let passion organically appear.

Chances are we already have the potential for passion to be built organically. It’s just that we don’t pay attention to it.

Children instinctively know what brings them joy because they pay attention to it whether consciously or unconsciously. They haven’t been molded by society or any other external functions yet. So they’re curious about the world around them. Curiosity begets discovery. Discovery begets Joy.

But we’ve been molded by society around us. We’ve been made to think that we need to focus on things that seem “important” but really aren’t. The focus on these things is what shuns our curious nature.

Ask yourself, “What am I interested in?”, “What am I curious about?”, and “What did I always want to create but never did?”.

What is unique to you?

Asking yourselves these questions and taking the proper time to answer them will allow you to be focused on the process rather than passion. While a lot of us do want to live a life of passion, we won’t get it if we put intense focus on it.

In the end, what we need to do is put intense focus on what makes us curious, interested, and excited, and build on those interests by challenging ourselves in order to see growth.

And let passion organically grow.

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