There are times when the best of us look towards others for advice to succeed. The advice we are most likely to get is,“Do whatever you do with passion, and you just can’t fail.” Unlike most advice which might, or might not, be applicable to everyone, this little piece of advice is perfect for anyone who wishes to succeed in his, or her, chosen field of work. But, then why aren’t more of us passionate about things? Why aren’t more of us successful?
In the simplest terms passion is a “boundless enthusiasm” for something. This something is the thing that you are looking to succeed in. So, if we can have boundless enthusiasm for something, we will succeed in it. It is as simple as that. Not really.
The difficulty stems from the fact that most of us end up doing things that we can not be passionate about, and still we want to succeed in that. What stops us from being passionate about what we do?
Firstly, we have a hard time identifying what our thing is. In stead of being guided by our hearts, we are governed by the wishes, desires, and expectations of “others”. These others are none other than our parents, friends and relatives. They have a pre-determined set of things that they want us to succeed at. It does not matter to them what we want, or what we are good at, they just want us to do what they feel is good for us. To be fair to these “others”, however, it is only we who can know what we want, and what we are good at, so it is our job to convince the “others” to let us do what we want to do. It might turn out to be one of those things that is easier said than done, but, easy or hard, it must be done.
Secondly, we may feel we are not passionate about anything. That can happen because we might not have come across the thing that makes us want to do more of it. For this Steve Jobs offers excellent advice in his 2005 Stanford Commencement Address – If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking, and don’t settle. When you find it, you will love it.
Thirdly, we focus on success to much, and that takes away the joy of doing. Even if we have managed to identify what we are passionate about, and are doing it, thinking about success too much can take away the joy of doing the thing. For example writing this post should be a joy unto itself for me; your comments are the icing on the cake. If I am worried about getting comments and page views more than writing (and that does happen sometimes), I will neither enjoy the process, nor will I be able to write something that makes you want to comment.
Lastly, the path that we have to take to pursue what we are passionate about may seem a bit more difficult that the alternative path which we see everyone around us taking. A safe and a secure monthly income sounds so much better than not knowing where your next cheque might be coming from, or wondering if it is coming at all. The lure of a steady income can often force us to abandon the path that we have to pursue to follow our passion. This temptation has to be guarded against.
We all have something that we can be passionate about, but for one reason or another, we find ourselves doing something else. How, then, can we expect to be successful in that?
True….but alas it mostly doesn’t happen….and a lot of them don’t want to make it happen too.
True.
As Frost mentioned once
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by,and that has made all the difference