Our generation-spanning experiment with passion-centric career planning can be deemed a failure: The more we focused on loving what we do, the less we ended up loving it. […] There’s little evidence that most people have pre-existing passions waiting to be discovered, and believing that there’s a magical right job lurking out there can often lead to chronic unhappiness and confusion.. – Cal Newport
Are you obsessed with identifying your passion? Are you worried you might not have one? Are you frustrated because each time you find a passion, it seems to slip away?
Passion is to your career as happiness is to your personal life. Chasing happiness feels good in the short term, but it can derail your life plans. Pursuing a passion in your career can do the same to your professional development.
Passion is like a reboot of the happiness myth. If happiness is original Coke, then passion is New Coke. And like New Coke, it tastes kinda crappy and will end in failure.
Like happiness, passion is an emotion. And an emotion works a lot like a drug.
Like happiness, passion is capricious. It comes and goes as IT pleases, not as YOU please.
Like happiness, passion is never fulfilled. The more you indulge in it, the stronger your craving, the higher your expectation.
Have you watched the Fast and Furious movies? In particular the first one (the best one).
Remember nos? Pronounced like the first syllable in “nozzle”. Nos is like a turbo button for a race car. It is a chemical that gives a quick surge of acceleration. But you have only a limited amount for use in each race. Use it at the right moment, and you’ll zoom past your opponent and win. Use nos at the wrong moment, or use too much of it at one time, and you’ll not only lose the race, but you might lose control of your car and crash. At least, this is what I learned watching Fast and Furious :)
Well, happiness and passion are like nos. They’re powerful, sexy, and tempting. They give you a brief but exhilarating boost.
But they’re temporary. You wish you could use them all the time, but they only come in limited supply. They’re hard to control. And costly. Like nos, you can’t rely on them to drive you to your destination, your dream.
You must rely on fuel instead. Fuel is stable, reliable, and consistent. Fuel gets you where you want to go.
And – here’s the punchline – if happiness and passion are nos, then HABITS are fuel.
A habit driven person employs emotion like Dom Toretto uses nos: only when absolutely necessary, and only to win.
You can still use nos. Passion and happiness are powerful. Passion can get you so excited to write a song that you’ll literally race to your desk and begin composing a melody on staff paper. But tomorrow you’ll wake up, groggy and irritable, and you’ll ignore that staff paper. You’ll think, I was so passionate about writing yesterday, I’ll wait for the feeling to come back. But she won’t return. Those notes will collect dust.
Rely on habit instead. Habit is emotion’s nemesis. Habit beats emotion nine times out of ten because he always shows up. He chugs along. He makes progress day after day, rep after rep.
Habit is the unsexy turtle. It will always outrun the fickle hare.
The person chasing happiness and passion will WANT to make yoga class in the evening. Really. But if her daily habit is to return home after work, plop down on the oversized leather couch, and eat fig newtons while watching reality TV…it’s just not gonna happen. Doesn’t matter how passionate she is about yoga. Her habit will take over. There’s another class tomorrow…work will be lighter tomorrow, she’ll tell herself.
The habit driven person also returns home after a long day, tired and stressed. But she’s gone to the gym every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for a month. She knows the regulars. The trainers nod and wink. With the pain and sweat and hours she’s invested, she’s lost ten pounds. You can see definition in her arms. Her gym shoes and workout bag are by the door, ready to go.
Guess what she’s gonna do?
PS. I’m writing on the habit driven life. Thanks for reading!