In my early 20s like every young adult, I thought I could conquer the world. I was filled with a burning passion and strong motivation. During this time, I tried many kinds of businesses. However, all of them had one thing in common, I did not last for 6 months. Instead, I quit early before any results could be seen. I discovered an unusual phenomenon. Once my passion burned less, I stick to it much longer. Now, I understand that passion and motivation are not the most important assets we need to stick to our plan. Here is the biggest lie in passion no one tells you about.
Passion – it is all about passion
Find your passion. Live passionately. Inspire the world with your passion. Furthermore, many people need a lifetime to find their passion. Therefore, they go to many events to get inspired. Or, they, like me in the past, get passionated by other people’s passion. For example, in my circle, there are three of my friends who found “passion”.
During lockdown two of my friends are thinking about starting a podcast. It is mainly about how to teach other people to live a good life. Sounds interesting to me because I am eager to see the results and new methods I have never heard of. And the other told me about turning the topics of my blog into youtube videos. They told me about it for many reasons.
Sometimes they need my opinion or advice. And sometimes it feels like a justification that their lives are at least as good as my current one. They saw me working for 2 years non-stop and they might envy my process. Therefore, they want to compete on the same level. But I am not sure. As mentioned in older posts, I do not like these kinds of conversations. Because I know they are not willing to commit to their projects.
After four or six months, I have not seen one start a project by them. One is busy playing video games, the other is busy with his girlfriends and the other is still talk about the idea. Even though I do not doubt their passion for the projects. But here is the biggest lie in passion no one tells you about – Passion may be the very thing holding you back from power, influence, or accomplishment. Because just as often, we fail because of passion.
The Biggest Lie in passion – The imposter’s passion
To be clear, I am not talking about real passion. For example, the passion that drives you to do things for hours. Or your passion, regardless of failure and negative feedback, that keeps you doing it just because you love it. These passions are the real ones and with time you will succeed, no matter what.
What I am talking about is this unbridled enthusiasm or the bundled energy that teachers and gurus assure is the most important asset. This is the biggest lie in passion. The impostor’s passion fuels the burning desire to start or to achieve some vague, ambitious, and distant goal. Furthermore, the reason for their passion is just wrong. Most of my friends told me that they are going to do it because they are destined to be successful.
Here are some typical phrases of the imposter’s passion: “I want to do the best and biggest ____ ever. Be the youngest ___. The only one to ___.”
Okay, well, if I hear their plans and wishes, I give them a rough plan to achieve it. However, instead of profiting from my experiences and failures, they quickly declined my offer. And that makes me angry and rather disappointed.
Because they hear what they want to hear. Do what they want to do. Because they are thinking that they figured it all out. I am working for 2 years on my dreams and I know that I know nothing. I still do not figure it all out. How can they ever be with zero experience? Do they think success is an overnight wonder?
What these people are lacking
My friends are victims of impostor passion. Because they only see one side of success. For example, the money they make, the prestige they gain, and the freedom they deserve now. All of these accomplishments are desirable by many. However, as little as they know, successful people must sacrifice everything. For example, I lived just for two years trying to achieve my dreams. At this time, I felt many highs as well as many lows. Therefore, I respect people who put their life into their dreams and goals. With loses and wins during their path and keep going to achieve it is the real passion!
Foreseeing the behavior of my friends, I know that they won’t start. Because they fuel themselves only with the wins, the good aspect. First, I know they will be at the bottom if they encounter their first obstacle. Secondly, they purchase the dreams, not for others but for themselves. As a result, they are eager to make themselves successful instead of the purpose of the cause. In other words, they say: I have to do this because I am special. It pushes our ego to the foreground.
This is the reason why I hate unbridled enthusiasm. It is only fueled by the outcome and success and it blinds the people about the sacrifices and losses they will have. These people are lacking a true purpose and realism.
How we should behave instead
Instead of developing a passion, we should develop a purpose. The purpose is like passion with boundaries. Realism is detachment and perspective.
All the things I do have one purpose only. I want to make this world a better place and I want to make people happy. As a result, I created this blog for you. By exposing my personality and my private life, I try to help you understand the things I am talking about. Even though I will receive no appreciation, I am still doing it because I love doing it. If I was fueled with the imposter passion things would be different. For example, I would quit three months after my first post. But I stick to it. I just love helping people.
Another great aspect of having a purpose instead of passion is that ego is pushed to the background. I learned this lesson a while ago. If we start to erase our ego from our cause, surprisingly we have more motivation. Instead of always motivating myself, I just do it automatically. I do not have to talk to myself: “Thien you have to write the next blog post, people need you!”. If I have to do it every day, I would break down and quit my blog. Instead, I just do it because I love writing about these topics. Erase your ego from your cause.
In addition, I learned a shift in my personality while I work on numerous projects. I feel calmer and less enthusiastic. And this is a good thing! Because this energy-filled enthusiasm is fragile if it comes to consistency. Because enthusiasm is a feeling and like every other feeling it fades away. Do you want to depend on your emotion for your goals? I hope not. Instead, I remind myself what I love doing and I just do it. It works until now.
Summary – The Biggest Lie in Passion no one tells you about
Summarized, the biggest lie in passion: passion is holding you back. Because, first, it blinds you from the real struggle that you will encounter. Second, depending on emotion for your success is guaranteed failure.
Passion makes you fragile. If we do things because we feel destined, we will be emotionally broken. Or at worst, we will never start. Here is the explanation of why we should not depend on passion. Passion is fueled by ego. If we equalize our ego with success, what will happen? We overthink, we just plan, we seek approval, and we never start. Why should we start if we expose our ego to negative impacts?
Instead of finding your passion, ask yourself about your purpose in life. What makes you happy doing? For me, it is making people happy and the world a bit better for my friends and family. Therefore, I created this blog to help them and you, random citizens. This is the power of purpose. I do not care if I stay nameless for years. I do it because I truly want to help you. Just this thought alone motivates me to write posts every week. It also counts for my other projects as well. Elodirect is a social media app for gamers. Also here, I want to help people connect. My freelancer job as a web developer is also for this purpose. I want to make people happy when they receive my digital product.
So ask yourself what you enjoy doing.
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