Stop Chasing Your Passion!

Hey everyone, welcome to this episode of Leadership Insider. I want to talk to you today about the whole idea of finding your passion. Uh there's been so much I think unhelpful things said about this particularly to young people who don't yet know their passion, would love to know their passion, see others um or perceive others to be living in their passion and envy people that have discovered that when they haven't. So begin some sense of pursuit often in a stumbling way to try and find their passion. But I think telling young people or anyone that has not yet discovered their thing in life to find their passion um is probably not the best advice because finding your passion doesn't start with finding your passion. It starts with curiosity. We're all naturally curious as kids. We become less curious. As you no doubt have found out, as we age, as we age, we crave more predictability, uncertainty, and routine. And curiosity becomes a casualty of that. So, I want to say to any of you listening to watching this that are trying to find your passion or you have someone in your world that you want to be able to find their passion and you've been coaching them in that, helping them in that, then here's a few things I think that are um the ways to do that. This is what I've discovered anyway in discovering my thing in life. Um so the first thing says it doesn't start with finding your passion. It starts with curiosity. It's good to in your early part of your life especially to try lots of things to not specialize too soon which is what find your passion suggests you should you should do but be curious about many things because the sequence of events is this. Curiosity leads to passion. Passion leads to obsession. Obsession leads to mastery. Curiosity, passion, obsession, mastery, I think, is the sequence of events of how this thing pans out. And I think the idea is to not confuse and conflate passion and obsession. Passion is something you're trying to hold on to often in life. Obsession is something that won't let you go. I think is a helpful uh difference of language to use about which phase you know that you're in in life in the pursuit of your passion and eventually obsession and mastery. Um curiosity means that you try lots of things on your way to finding what your thing is. So start there. You don't start by um settling too early on something that you feel or think you'd be passionate about uh and later discover you're not and have got exhausted trying to make something work for you, make something be your passion only to find out it never was. Um try lots of things. Be more what I call a hummingbird at the beginning of this pursuit, beginning of this evolution of finding your thing. Be more the hummingbird than the woodpecker. Move more from, as it were, flower to flower as the hummingbird does, than spending all day banging away at the same piece of wood on a tree thinking that's my passion. I'll stay here until something happens. Uh be a hummingbird. Move from thing to thing. Spread your interests wide. Um try different things. Uh be interested in lots of things. Explore widely. Allow yourself to be therefore bad at lots of things. This is the bit where I think we get stuck. We are curious about things. So we pursue that curiosity. Then we find that we're really bad at where it takes us. So we ditch it and keep moving. Uh years go by where we continue to be the hummingbird and and never settle on one or two particular flowers as it were, which is the idea that curiosity becomes some version of you find as you're curious about lots of things. What few things in those lots of things are your particular passion, interest, love, what lights you up? You may be curious about music and business and art and health and exercise. Um, great. Be curious about all those things and keep moving through all those things and let curiosity keep asking questions and interrogating those things as to whether or not they are things that you should spend more time on. Ask what is this? How does it work for me? How do I feel when I'm doing it? What happens when I try? How do I feel when I try and don't do well? Uh so curiosity is not commitment. Don't worry that it's becoming a commitment. It's not. It's exploration and you need time for that. And as your curiosity begins to settle on one or two things, that's where passion lives. Passion lives at the end of the curiosity journey. It doesn't mean you stop being curious in your life. Never stop being curious. But in in terms of the discovery of your thing, you're wanting to be curious until you not curious anymore um with the same sort of widespread attention that you've had. These few things that you settle on, that you keep returning to that you effortlessly now seem to enjoy and want to spend time in and research and get better at and double down on. These are things that are becoming the foothills, if you like, of your passions. When you find what they are, you have got into the neighborhood of what you should stick with. Now is not the time to keep flying around, you know, um, hummingbird flying around anymore. Now's the time to settle into these things that you feel are more exciting to you, more interesting to you, that they are more gripping of you. Um it's the stage where you um say, "I'm going to stay here. I'm now going to get good at playing the guitar. I'm going to get good at developing these people skills. I'm going to get good at um my ability with uh you know computers and data and software and all of that. I'm going to get good at developing uh my skills that are manual skills. I'm brilliant at, you know, doing things with mechanics or plumbing or I'm brilliant at cooking or whatever it may be. And these things become your passions where you're so happy to invest more time and effort. It doesn't feel so much like effort anymore because you are enjoying it so much. Um your identity almost starts to get developed around these few things that now I think you can say safely these are my passions. These are the things that I'm loving to spend my time on. What are they for you? Are you there yet? Do you know what they possibly are? Can you language them? Now this is the I suppose challenge when you get even to your stage of passion because passion is where you settle where you enjoy what you're doing where you are ex expending quite a bit of time and effort and energy but to maintain your passion to stay in it long enough for it to become mastery which becomes then effortless. others. You have to be willing to um be bad at it. Passion is a tricky space to be in because you found your thing, but you haven't yet developed enough skills for you to be convinced it's your thing. So, you're still asking, "Am I good enough?" Um, is this really my thing? Should I quit? uh people whose thing this is are better at it than me. So you're trying to not let go of it because you're not convinced your ability level yet could allow you to feel it's a passion. Here's where lots of people drop it then and step away and go back to being unhelpfully curious, too widely curious because the passion that you felt seems to dissipate in the face of struggling and not getting the results you want. been barretted sucking at something long enough to discover it is your passion and actually could become your obsession. And when a thing becomes an obsession, that's where all the good stuff begins to happen. And if you if you don't know the difference between those two things, and I'll talk about that in a minute, then you think, well, if this was my thing, then it wouldn't be as difficult as challenging as it is. It would be more, you know, encouraging and and inspirational and more exciting. Uh but passion often feels more frustrating and uh slow progress and self-doubt and imposttor syndrome is often what you feel during your passion. And it's confusing because you think well I'm in my thing. I'm in my passion but I don't think I should be staying here because I'm not good at it. Others have said to me, oh that wasn't great or you didn't do that well or that wasn't a good piece of work you did. and you think, "Yeah, I know." So, your tendency is to want to quit in the face of that discouragement. Uh, and so you stop and go back to square one. And that's what I don't want you to do. I want you to stay in what's become um your passion knowing that I am here earlier than my skills are earlier than my mastery is earlier than where the pain of making mistakes uh isn't enough to make me turn back. I realize I'm going to make mistakes. I'm I'm allowing those mistakes and the pain of that to propel me forwards because I know this is my thing and eventually if you'll keep pushing through this discomfort and this disappointment in your efforts even inside your passion you start to move towards uh obsession not full mastery yet but enough competence that you feel your progress is accelerating and your results are improving consistently and your identity deepens around your attachment to that thing that you are calling your passion and you haven't got full mastery yet and don't worry about that. But you're not where you were. You're not at the entry level passion. You're moving towards the end end part of passion which is where obsession begins to kick in and something begins to change. What begins to change when you're moving from passion to obsession is that you are more being pulled by obsession than you are trying to be motivated towards your passion. Passion requires motivation to stay interested in it. Obsession does not. Obsession keeps choosing you, keeps calling you, keeps gripping you. Passion doesn't. And you'll know you've moved from passion to obsession when you stop trying to be motivated. And now you almost can't help yourself, but stay interested, get involved. Um, can't put it down because it's not putting you down. Passion requires motivation. Obsession kind of replaces motivation and it becomes effortless. This is the space where you always wanted to be and where you often saw people in their passion that were effortless in it, but they weren't in their passion. They were in their obsession, but you called it passion and said, "I don't have that, so it mustn't be my thing yet." You know, they were they'd advanced beyond passion to obsession, which is where you will get to if you don't quit in this in between curiosity and obsession. This passion phase that just needs discipline and showing up and keep trying and keep putting out work that's not great and keep dealing with this inner chatter about I'm not enough. It was terrible. And people that mattered to me said that to me. It wasn't great. Yeah, they're right. It wasn't great. So, you quit. And you were maybe, you know, a week or two from in into this obsession territory where it feels, "Yay, I'm here. This is brilliant. It's effortless. It's so easy." Yes. Yes. That's where you're going to get to if you'll keep going. Um because obsession creates energy. You're not what I call manufacturing energy anymore to stay interested, which is what you're doing in the passion stage. You're manufacturing energy to keep having a go, especially when the results aren't great. But um obsession brings its own buzz, its own drive, its own energy, its own persistence, its own resilience. When that's all there effortlessly in you, you're in the territory of obsession because the work itself becomes addictive. It's not addictive when you're in the passion stage. That's why we shouldn't say to people find your passion as if the passion is the end goal and where you stop. Yes, find your passion through curiosity, but then stay with your passion, especially when you suck at it until it becomes its own drive, its own pull, its own energy, its own thrill, its own excitement, uh its own addiction. Then you enter your obsession. Now you you can't wait to get back into it. you you you you never have an off button as it were about the thing you are obsessed with. Um and so you think about it, read about it, talk about it, uh lose track of time when you're around it. This is how you know that the obsession has landed. You have found your thing. It's when um it's when the work that you were doing in your passion stage starts working on you. It starts beckoning you, calling you, won't let you go. You are in obsession. This is where all the big stuff starts to happen in your life around your thing. You found your thing. It's an obsession. People will start saying to you, "Wow, you you know, you you're obsessed with that." That's a compliment. You're obsessive about that. That's a compliment because they're telling you that you found your thing. They never said that to you, you know, months or years ago. They never said that to you. Now, don't ever hear that as a criticism or a judgment. That's something you should work on. It's not. You found your thing and now you found your thing. Curiosity served you. Passion moved you beyond curiosity. And now you have found your thing. Curiosity opens the doors. Let me read this to you. Passion keeps you in the room. Obsession builds the house. Again, curiosity opens the doors. Passion keeps you in the room that the door opened for you to get into. Obsession builds the house. Or curiosity explores the world. Passion chooses a path for you. Compassion builds a life for you. This is obsession rather builds a life for you. So if you're young and trying to find your thing, don't start with passion. Start with curiosity. Be curious about lots of things. Let passion emerge from what holds your attention and interest. then stay long enough to be to become good at what you're passionate about because somewhere on the other side of competence um obsession is waiting for you. I don't know where this progression finds you today. Curiosity, passion, obsession, and then mastery. Mastery is what happens when you settle in to your obsession. and you get brilliant at something and now you have mastery. Now you are a master of your craft because you have spent months, years horning your skills around your obsession, becoming the best you can be in what you're obsessed with. You become best version of you in that space. And you're brilliant at it. And everybody knows you're brilliant at it. People say to you, you're brilliant at it. Now you are making a living from it. Perhaps you've monetized it. It's your career. It's your life. It's your dream life because you now have mastery. And if you look back, and often people that have mastery don't because they're just so, you know, consumed with the mastery and the joy of that, which is great. But remember where you came from. Remember the sequence of events that you started with curiosity. You got passionate about a few things. Those things became obsessions to you. Those obsessions you develop mastery in. And now here you are. So when people are asking you for advice about how to find their passion, remember not to say to them, you know, well, what are you good at? and they say to you, well, I'm, you know, I'm I'm good at music or I'm good at cooking or and then, well, that's your passion. Develop that then. What do you love doing? Those are good conversation to have, but make sure that you're dealing with someone first that has not abandoned curiosity. It's not good to settle on what you call your passion too early because you then overspecialize too early, get exhausted trying to make that passion a thing. never was supposed to become your thing. So stay curious until you find your passion. Then stay in that space until you feel this has overtaken me. This is effortless. This is my joy. This is what lights me up. Then you found your obsession. Remember, if you're advising people like I'm doing now about how to find your thing, remember this sequence of events and help people locate themselves on where they are at in this layering. Are they in this curiosity stage? Then empower that. Have they found their passion? Explain. That's going to be the most difficult part because this is where you're going to try and develop and get better. But your skills are lagging behind what you feel about this thing. Your skills will come later. And the gap between finding your thing and getting good at it and getting mastery at it can be a long gap. So if you're in your if you're in your passion stage, I'm saying to you, let's say to people, you pass this on to someone that you're watching. Hey, this is your passion. I know that wasn't a great outcome that you had uh recently, but that doesn't mean it's not your thing. stay with it. You'll get better and the results will get more consistent and you'll start getting energy and love and interest for it more and more because you're moving towards your obsession. Hope this makes sense to you guys. have tried to simplify it all and put it into these four stages for you to locate where you are or help someone else locate where they are in the journey towards discovery of their thing that obsession really we should be saying because that's the ultimate place obsession and mastery where you at where's someone at curiosity your passion your obsession your mastery I think this if I' if I'd have heard this you know decades decades ago. It would have saved me I think a lot of discouragement, a lot of you know disheartened low days when I felt that my passion of communication in my particular case public speaking had such poor results. And I looked at I was in awe of those I looked at that just seem to do it effortlessly and I thought yeah I'm never going to be able to do that. I probably should think of doing something else with my life. I kept going often as of you without without encouragement, without someone helping me, coaching, mentoring me to think to say to me this is there's enough traits here to let us know this is your thing. But just keep doing it. You'll get better. You'll get more consistent results. You'll get more high days than low days. You'll get more, you know, better chapters than poor chapters as it were in the book of your obsession of mastery. So if you're in your passion, keep going. If you're having a bad day, keep going. Get up and go again until it becomes some sense of mastery and then you've arrived. You've got your thing. All right. Hope that makes sense to you guys. Hope it was helpful to you or someone else on your mind as you listen to this or watch this. Thanks for being here. Please hit follow and subscribe uh and schedule to download each episode as it comes out. Hope you're enjoying. Let us know in the comments and I will speak to you next time. Thank you.