The Truth About Following Your Passion
Follow your Passion!
Is this myth good or bad? And is this advice for everyone?
Generally speaking, it is good advice. But it also depends.
Following your passion, in general, is something amazing and worth pursuing and fighting for. Sir Ken Robinson said that the sweet spot for anyone is ‘’when they have discovered their element. Which is the place where the things you love to do and the things that you are good at come together’’. And this is simply the definition of passion.
And here is something that I have noticed. If you are passionate about something, you will find yourself willing to do it, even if for free.
For example, I adore public speaking long before being a consultant or a coach. And when I was an employee, each time I used to be invited to speak in different locations around the world I used to say yes and do it regardless if I will get paid or not…I did it just because I loved it and enjoyed doing it.
But there is also a misconception that a lot of people have. And this misconception is that to follow your passion, you have to start your own business.
But who said that? You can be a passionate teacher, engineer, doctor, scientist, or anything else that you choose without having your own business and just being an employee. This is really something worth mentioning.
If you look at it from this perspective, then you can make a good argument that everyone should follow their passion. But to see the full picture, let us answer the second question first.
Now, let us imagine that what you are passionate about requires you to quit your job and start your own business. Should you do this and is this for everyone? Definitely No.
And here is where most people fail. Because they do not really understand or know what to expect in the first 5 years of their businesses. They don’t do enough research to understand what their lives will look like and if they can survive this life or not through connecting or looking at the detailed lives of people who created similar projects.
Usually, the story starts with any of them like this…I am passionate about something. My friends are telling me that I am also talented in doing this thing, so I start thinking about turning it into a business. And suddenly, I look around me and I start seeing some famous names in this industry, or in other words, some people who achieved great things in their area. So I get more encouraged and say to myself ‘’if they can do it, then I can do it also. Plus, my product or service will be even better and I will sell more and everything will run on autopilot’’. And this is, of course, a very shallow approach.
Because the people that they saw around them and looked up to them as role models are in their peak or prime time. They already spent 5, 10, or even 15 years of hard work, struggle, and pain to achieve this level or this outcome that you see in the end. So comparing yourself to them and expecting to have what they have after you start your business is not a good idea at all.
When you start a business around your passion, you will discover that almost 80-90% of the things that you are doing in your day-to-day business are irrelevant to what you are passionate about.
For example, If you are passionate about painting and want to be a professional painter. You may think that you will spend most of your time painting. Which is not the case.
To be a professional painter and to earn a living, you need to be very good at Marketing, Sales, Bookkeeping, and other activities. If the only thing that you are doing is painting, you will never make money, even if you are talented as Picasso. Because you need publicity, you need sales, and you need to create systems in your business and take care of a lot of other things.
If you are not good at these other business aspects, you can outsource them if you have money. But if you do not have money, and you are not good at these other things, and you are not even interested in putting in the hours to learn and do them, then your business will fail, and it has nothing to do with your talents.
And this is what most people who follow their passion and start a business do not consider. Their businesses have a lot of other important aspects that they have to take care of other than their talent or passion.
So if you are already prepared and know what you are doing, then following your passion will be an asset and not a liability. Because in this case, your passion will be the only thing that will keep you pushing and fighting for survival and staying persistent when everything goes wrong and especially in the first 3–5 years of starting your business.
Because during this time, you will make a lot of mistakes, you will fail, and you will try a lot of things until you understand how to really run your business. And if you are not passionate about what you are doing, then you will drop everything as soon as you get your first hit or as soon as you try a few things, and they do not work.
I always say that to succeed in keeping your business alive during the first 5 years, you need three elements combined: Time+Money+Persistence.
You need to give yourself time to experiment and to make a lot of trials and errors until you know what works and what doesn’t.
You need money to support you during this trial and error period because if you do not have money, you and your business will not survive.
And you need Persistence because it is the only thing that will make you come up with new ideas and strategies to implement, even though your last 10 ideas did not work.
If you are giving yourself time, and have the drive to keep trying new things while having the financial ability at least just to survive, sooner or later it will work, and a door will open. And this is why lots of new businesses do not work. Because their owners either do not give themselves enough time, they do not have persistence, or they are out of money.
Let me know your opinions and tell me if you ever followed your passion or not, and what following your passion led you to achieve.
Share with me your thoughts and see you in the next article.
