In the world of business and creative advice, you probably encounter the word “passion” an awful lot. We’re told to follow our passion, to find what we’re passionate about, to let this elusive and poorly defined idea guide our creative and entrepreneurial decisions… But in reality, that’s not very good advice.
The truth is, you don’t need passion to be successful.
Now, having passion isn’t a bad thing by any means – but putting too much emphasis on it can lead to some trouble. We tend to think that passion drives results, or that to get started with a new creative idea, we have to be wildly passionate about it…
If we DO have something we’re overtly passionate about, this same conventional wisdom tells us that we have to monetize it, make a career out of it, and use it as our sense of identity.
All of this misses a critical piece of the creative process: failure, floundering, and recalibrating as you go.
We might be passionate about an idea or a craft, but we likely aren’t passionate about making mistakes – and if passion is the primary focus, those essential mistakes are either avoided (because we just want to feel good and passionate), or have the power to derail our progress.
In the video linked below, we’ll explore all of this in more detail, but a massive takeaway is reframing this idea of passion into one of presence. We need to be INVOLVED in the work to be successful – not passionate. Feeling involved means staying the course in states of peak motivation, in the depths of a difficult learning process, and every mundane or exciting moment in between.
A sense of deep involvement keeps us present in the project, in the process, and on the path toward success. Passion alone can’t do that.
You can read more about this in the attachment here: In the Realm of Passion.docx
Until Soon
Coach JD
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