Don’t Follow Your Passion
You have probably heard the phrase “Do what you love” at least once in your life.
Especially if you happen to be a part of the self-improvement industry, this phrase seems to be parroted by almost every single “self-improvement guru” out there. Although it seems like it’s obviously true, the truth is much darker.
To give you an example as to why “do what you love” is bad, let me give you an example.
Let’s imagine for a second that John really likes playing his guitar to the point that he’s an expert.If he followed the advice of “do what you love” and tried to find a job doing guitar gigs or teaching people how to play, he would probably be successful in landing himself a job.
Now, for the first few weeks, he feels great. He is doing what he wants to do(which is play the guitar) while also earning his income at the same time. After a while though, something changed. John went from really loving his job to hating it. In a seemingly perfect scenario, John found himself miserable doing something that he once loved, something he once considered his passion.
There are hundreds of thousands of people like John who found a way to “do what they love” and ended up miserable.
The reason why the “do what you love” concept fails has to do with what happens during the “love what you do” process. Before getting the job doing what you love, you did what you did because you were awarded dopamine by your brain. So, when an external reward comes into play, such as money, the brain doesn’t need to provide that intrinsic reward anymore to keep you going, so it stops.
Another thing to take into account is that our passion doesn’t always align with the way we make money off of it. Going back to our case with John, He may have liked playing the guitar in his spare time and coming up with all sorts of melodies, but becoming a guitar teacher or doing guitar gigs in restaurants and such doesn’t fully align with his interests.
For instance, Becoming a guitar teacher limits your playing and makes you teach other people and deal with clients you might not like, while also having to come up with lesson plans.
So, now that I have debunked the “do what you love” concept, It’s time I introduced you to the best alternative” love what you do”.
Shockingly similar, I know, but there is a big difference between the two.
While doing what you love implies that you have a certain passion or hobby and you try to mold it into a career path, “love what you do” embraces the exact opposite concept, which is finding something that works for you and creating a positive feedback loop to essentially help you “love what you do”. You see, this is the option many of the billionaires you know like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs took. Do you think Steve Jobs would like creating tech products if he didn’t see results after 5 years of progress?
In conclusion, instead of being brainwashed into the “do what you love” and “follow your passion” doctrine, instead find a pain point or a valuable skill to first “ love what you do” in order to “do what you love”.
