Why Follow Your Passion Is Bad Advice • A Personal Story

As a person who has followed his passion for years I experienced both the pros and cons of this advice. Unfortunately in many cases, the cons outweigh the pros. Inspired by Cal Newport's book "So Good They Can't Ignore You" and also reflecting about my personal examples and that of people around me in this episode of Journey To Mastery I will explore the subject of why follow your passion is bad advice.

#Passion #FollowYourPassion #Mastery

[Rokasleo]

Did you experience the downside of "follow your passion" advice? Did you see others getting burned because of it?

[CaptPostmod]

"Follow your passion" is advice often given in circles that ascribe to Magical Thinking. Magical Thinking is the belief that one's ideas, thoughts, wishes, or actions can influence the course of events in the physical world.

I often defeat Magical Thinking by pointing to very young children. A 3-year-old who wants a cookie before bed thinks of nothing else. He or she is solely focused on getting that cookie. Every last ounce of their soul is poured into an all consuming drive to have that cookie. And yet, that gets them no where and they are sent to bed without the cookie. The Secret doesn't work for toddlers. And they believe more fully in their passions than any adult ever could in anything.

That same litmus test could be applied to the advice to "Follow your passion." And I think it would provide similar results to what you describe. One could imagine a 6-year-old boy who loves dinosaurs. This kid is absolutely obsessed. He can name every dinosaur in the big dictionary of dinosaurs he has and tell you all their pertinent stats. He watches shows about dinosaurs on TV all the time. He draws dinosaurs. He has dinosaur sheets. He gets to go on a field trip to a museum and meet a paleontologist. That's what he wants to be. But if he quit 1st grade right then and there and demanded a job in the museum as a paleontologist, he would be rightly laughed at and escorted back out to his mom or dad. You can't tell me that any adults' passion for a job is greater than a 6-year-old dinosaur enthusiast's passion for dinosaurs. But it takes more than passion to make someone qualified, experienced, and ready for a job in any field.

[dulistanheman]

Know your passion and put hours and hours to get it like it never enough.

[RicoMnc]

Harness your passion, or find passion and joy in everything you do or pursue would be better advice.

For a few years I fell into a job producing music for multimedia. Music was my passion, or so I thought.

The realities of producing music for people who were paying you did not live up to my idealistic fantasies.

I still love writing, playing, and performing music, but I do something else for a living now. That's ok with me.

[TheRubypokespe]

I "failed" and burnt out of my passion because I followed it. I love art and animation I decided to pursue it While I was not the best in my craft I enjoyed doing it, but perhaps it might've been better if I pursued it as a hobby. It's a long story but it boils down to disillusionment and rejection. I still got my degree in it but now Idk if I still want to pursue it. I won't say I regret taking it for college as it paved way for life long relationships, new skills and new hobbies (including Martial Arts) This could serve as a warning for me in the future to find the balance between what I want and what I am good at. That said we only have one shot in this life so if you really want to pursue your passion then like what you did in your Aikido and MMA journey they have to work hard, calculate the risks and take the leap.

[murilocaruy]

I also learned this lesson the hard way. I graduated in Advertising, and was interested in arts and design. I wanted to work with comics and/or concept art. I took lessons in painting, drawing, digital painting. I read books of art theory, design concepts, art history... Until I realized that I needed money and I was nowhere near the level to make a living with art. So I went back to advertising, but the market had changed, smartphones and accessible internet made the print media that we were trained to create obsolete. I got into several crappy jobs that almost didn't pay the bills. Eventually I found a job as a designer, that paid a little better, but my company closed doors. Looking for jobs in either ad or design was impossible - many interviews, but the salary didn't even cover housing prices, and employer even mocked me that "your company went bankrupt because they paid too much for designers!", even tough it was still a crappy salary.
I gave up all my old dreams and started studying IT. I hated math but now I look forward to learning linear algebra and calculus. I'm a programmer now, I have good career prospects and my job pays better than any other job I've ever had, despite having only 3 years in tech vs 12 in design. I'm more happy than ever now.
Don't follow your dreams. Instead of doing what you like, learn to like what you do.

[silvertech]

So, Passion is a start, but without hardwork and dedication a person will not achieve their goal.

[danielf.]

I think its very hard to balance these tipe of advises. Many people is not specially good at anything, other people dont feel a "passion" for anything, and im not critisicing that because this is my case.
It would be great Rokas, that you design some "steps" that lead you to a sort of levels of achievents in a specific matter.
For example: if you read in 6 months at least (in your free time) ten books of the topic you want to master, you reach the level of "someone who knows more or less what is he talkimg about".
If you read another X number of books and go to some lectures or conferences..you reach level 2 "prospect master".... this are just stupid examples but I hope you understand what I mean

[phanourios]

This video is bang on. It's not enough to have passion, as passion wanes. It's all about the hours you put in.

[maissthro]

Doing something because you think you are good at it, o because some few say you should do it" is not enough reason to do it. And the obsession over a topic ain't good enough either, since you can know the idea but to actually put it in practice above an average performance takes a lot of practice. Some new ideas to consider aside those 2. Thanks for the video.

[felipearevalo]

Instead of "following your passion" dream, maybe we should think about what is really my own passion?, this is because we are very conditioned by culture, by this crap coaching stuff that is very popular on this days, or by the classic "later times where better times". We live in the society of fatigue, work hard, earn low, and your job is your real passion, and all of this is a lie. I can not agree with all of your idea, but is true what your say, that many of us arent following a passion but we are living in the dreams of somebody else. I can understand you Rokas because I thought that become a chinese martial art máster was my dream, but it was impost by my Shifu, althought I really like chinese Martial arts, when I trained mma and bjj, I found that there is another realities to explore, but the true is that I wasted 15 years in this, i'm older, and dont have the enought money to start again, but the true is that my "passion" wasn't mine, and realized this is very hard and painful. What to do if your "follow" your passion is not enought?

[brianwah]

Great advice! Business training is often the missing element from many many many people who follow a passion career...

[FDonovan]

You need to read the Hero's Journey by Joseph Campbell if you haven't already because your journey very much reflects it.

[Shinbusan]

I got it few years ago. Put aside other career to start filming from the beginning. Than I understood after few years I am unwilling to persue it fully, I prefer my daughter and wife, and I got back to 'normal' career.

[gawayne]

Thank you Rokas, this really frames my current job seeking efforts in a new, much more useful light.

[VoidedTea]

If we shouldn’t follow our passion, then why would we call it “Pass I On”? 😉

[al-imranadore]

I think Universities are overrated. I worked at coaching center(a place where college students do part time tuition for 6th graders, kind like of an ICU for kids with very low IQ) typing stuff like question papers and daily lessons, I learned more about using and maintaining a PC there than I learned from the Engineering University I was in(one of the top ten private Electronics engineering University in my country), like I had to actually open the casing and look inside to see what's wrong, the University didn't even have a workshop, most "Projects" done by their top students are literally DIY shit bought online or from somewhere else.

[Andrii]

I really like your personal development / book review part of channel.
Would you make a list of books that you recommend to read?

[sarthakpandey]

Hey man I am passionate about football and starte captain so should I leave study ?

[Helltown]

Following your passions doesn't always work out because of capitalism which incentivizes people to work slave wages just to survive and hardly ever manage to move on to something better.