What Happens When You Actually Follow Your Passion?
“Do what you love.”
“Find your passion and you’ll never work a day in your life. ”
These clichés are tossed around quite often in articles about finding success and happiness.
If you’ve read Cal Newport , he’ll tell you that it’s all BS. Although I used to think these things were true, I’m starting to agree with Cal. However, there is one caveat to my agreement.
I think we already know what we want to do.
We already know our “passion” and we have always known.
Reality, however, is a different animal.
We are either too afraid to truly go after what we want, or we’re not willing to put in the work necessary to achieve it.
“If you’re passionate about something, it will already feel like such an ingrained part of your life that you will have to be reminded by people that it’s not normal, that other people aren’t like that.”
Look, I get it. We can’t all be professional athletes, writers, etc. Moreover, some people were born with innate abilities that put them a few steps ahead to start the race. But there is a common thread between those at the top and those of us muddling around elsewhere:
Hard Work
It’s another cliché, but you can find it in anyone you identify as successful.
Lebron James spends around $1.5 million a year on nutrition and his physical health alone.
Warren Buffett reads up to 1,000 pages a day.
Stephen King writes in “On Writing” about sitting down in the same chair, at the same desk, in the same place every single day and writing.
These people took a chance on themselves. They placed themselves in the arena and faced uncertainty head on.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Theodore Roosevelt (Excerpt from the speech “Citizenship in a Republic”)
Lebron went to the NBA straight out of high school. Yes, he was Lebron and a rare physical specimen, but that didn’t guarantee him physical longevity. There are countless stories of players with potential who got injured early on and, therefore, never reached their full potential. Furthermore, he was a high schooler playing against grown men. Speculate all you want, but you don’t know if you’ll be able to be the same player. He could have easily been drafted and realized he was an average player — there are stories like this too (Sebastian Telfair, Kwame Brown).
Buffett has a history of taking chances on himself from an early age. He started numerous businesses and struck many deals while still in high school. By the time he was ready to start his company, he had grown comfortable being uncomfortable. But he was still taking a chance. He moved back to Nebraska from the center of the financial world — New York City. Had he stayed in New York, things would have probably been easier for him. He was already established there and would have had easy access to a larger market. But he wasn’t a fan of New York, so he moved his family back to Omaha, trusting that he would be able to figure it out.
Stephen King sent articles to companies at a young age. Since they weren’t all accepted, he faced rejection letters from experienced editors. Rejection can be tough at any age, but it can be particularly tough at a young age. King could have easily decided that he wasn’t any good and stopped writing forever. Or, he could have decided to write about something else, maybe even moving into journalism instead of writing fiction. But he used those rejection letters as lessons. He persevered and kept writing the things he liked to write.
I believe we all have similar stories.
We have these things we wanted to be when we were younger that we either went for or stopped chasing . Normally, we stop chasing because, “it’s not the rational thing to do.”
To paraphrase Gary Vee, the choice is typically between what we know we want to do and what we think others want us to do.
No, you might not have been able to be Lebron James, Warren Buffett, or Stephen King. But you probably could have made it to the NBA, made a profit investing, or published a novel.
There’s an old saying that coaches throw around a lot:
“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”
In my mind, the takeaway is this:
The reason you won’t be Lebron is because he is talented AND he works hard.
But,
- Until you try, you won’t actually know.
- If you don’t try, you will never know.
- If you try and fail, you’ll still be farther along than if you hadn’t tried at all.
You should go after your passion full throttle. Having a backup plan isn’t bad, but it can act as an out.
Weston McKennie — an upcoming US Soccer player — talked about this in an interview he did with Kyle Martino. He had a choice of playing soccer at the University of Virginia, one of the top college programs in America, or entering Schalke 04’s youth academy, which is one of the best youth academies in the world.
In the interview he says he chose to enter Schalke’s academy, because he didn’t want to have that out. Had he gone to UVA he would have been splitting his time between school and soccer. People would have been warning him about having a backup plan. It would have been easy for fear to get the best of him; thus, causing his backup plan to become his new main plan. He went to the academy with the knowledge that, if it didn’t work out, he would figure things out from there.
Now, he’s made it to Schalke’s first team — aka he’s getting paid — and is one of the players identified as the future of the United States Men’s National Team. By no means is he done, but now his goals have shifted. Instead of trying to become a pro, he is a pro who is working to become one of the best players in the world.
Assuming any of these people hadn’t accelerated to the heights at which they now sit, they would have still been in a great position.
If Lebron hadn’t become King James, he could have adjusted his goals and gone back to school, started a business, or just had a 20-year career as an average player. He might have become a great coach.
If Warren Buffett’s plans had not worked out and made him billions of dollars, I think it’s safe to say that he still would’ve been making a comfortable living.
But this is why you have to go after your passion full throttle. When you aim for the top, falling short still leaves you close to your goal. However, aiming to merely scrape the bottom gives you a greater chance of coming up empty. Another way to think about it is if we aim small, we will miss small. Aiming for the tiny dot in the center of the dart board will give you more focus than simply aiming for the dart board itself. If you aim for the center of the board and miss, you are still close to the center. But if you aim for the entire board and miss, sure you might hit the center, but you also might break a window.
Furthermore, the reality is that you don’t just want to “make it,” you want to be great.
People want to be Lebron, Buffett, and King because they’re the best at what they do. Sure, given our current situations, we might gladly be a bench player in the NBA, make an extra $100 a month investing, or self-publish just one novel. Yet, when we first envisioned success in our respective passions, we wanted to be the NBA MVP, make billions investing, and become a well-known author with multiple best-sellers.
Our dreams were not small.
Yes, these goals are most likely considered unrealistic; however, small goals can be limiting. Let’s say that, instead of setting a goal to become an NBA MVP, you set a goal to make your high school’s basketball team. For the sake of hyperbole, let’s also say you’re a high school freshman phenom. As a freshman, you try out for Varsity and make the team. Guess what! You’ve achieved your goal. Now, what is your incentive for playing well during the season, or even trying out again next year?
The obvious move in this situation is to adjust and set new goals. But doesn’t it make more sense to have “make my high school team” be a smaller goal leading up to the larger goal of “become an NBA MVP?” Then, you don’t have to constantly set new goals and find new motivations. Just aim for the top from the start. If you read that and think, “but I can’t be the next NBA MVP,” I have one question for you:
Why not?
Someone has to be the NBA MVP each year. Why not you?
Someone is going to make money investing like Buffett. Why not you?
Someone is going to be the next Stephen King. Why not you?
Originally published at freedomsreach.com on January 28, 2019.
