Why “Follow Your Passion” Doesn’t Work

To achieve any goal in life, make sure to spend time each day doing focused, undistracted work on that goal.

Sounds good and all... but what if you're not sure what exactly your goal is?

How can you set priorities, when there are too many options and you don't know which is more important?

If you feel stuck because:

• You're not sure what exactly your life purpose is
• You have many ideas and don't know which one to focus on (or don't want to focus on just one)
• Or you have tried "following your passion" as everyone tells you, but it doesn't seem to work
  

Then this workshop contains exactly the tools you need to get unstuck!

Here is a reference for the exercises presented in this workshop:

Exercise 1

Start by listing out all of your ideas for projects, businesses, life paths you are considering.

Then, rate each idea from 1-5 on the following:

1. Your interest in pursuing this as a craft for at least 5 years.

How do you feel about the idea of diving deep into this and spend a majority of your time learning, working and expanding your skills and expertise in this area?

2. Your feelings about the mundane aspects of the craft.

Every craft, no matter how glamorous it may look from the outside, is essentially mundane. Most of your time will be spend doing repetitive, non-glamorous tasks. Think about what the day-to-day will really look like and rate how you feel about that.

3. Your current level of skill, expertise & experience.

Is this something you already have experience in? Starting from a high skill level makes the path shorter.

4. How purposeful and meaningful it feels to you.

Do you feel like your time would be well used, if you spend the next 5+ years working on this? How much does it feel like it serves a higher purpose or brings something important and meaningful to the world?

Exercise 2

Take the remaining ideas and rate them from 1-5 on the following:

1. How economically viable is this idea?

Look for other businesses in this area. Are people buying products here? Are people getting paid to do this?

2. Your current access to this market.

Do you already have access to this market, to potential customers, potential partners, events etc?

3. Your feelings about selling something in this market.

You will have to do some selling to turn this idea into a profitable venture. How do you feel about that? Does it feel good to you (high score) or does it feel like a sacrilege (low score)?

Exercise for the "No Idea" Situation

What if you don't even have an idea for what direction to go in? Here are some writing prompts that can help.

Note: you will need to spend some time writing and thinking about this. To go from "no idea" to a clear sense of direction isn't a quick fix. But it is very much worth spending time on.

Prompt 1: Waking up to $10B

Imagine that you wake up tomorrow and there are $10 billion in your bank account. The money just magically appeared, is all yours, no strings attached. It is functionally unlimited money so you can now do anything you want to do and you never have to work for money again.

Write down what you'd do, right away. Whatever comes to mind. There are probably many "money problem" items that you'd solve right away. Then maybe some things like buying a house, getting a nice car, getting things you've always wanted.

And after that, what would you do? What would you spend your time doing, if you had ultimate financial freedom?

Prompt 2: $10B + everyone's love and approval

To take this thought experiment even further and dig even deeper, imagine this: you don't only have the $10B, you also have everything you want. You've already gone on the trip around the world, seen all the wonderful places, spent time lounging on a beach. You have everyone's love and approval. Your parents are proud of you, your peers admire you. You have nothing left to prove. You are in a loving relationship and everything is going great.

Given this, what would you spend your time doing?

Prompt 3: Flywheel moments in the past

Remember the flywheel effect, where deep engagement and growing skill in an area, combined with positive reinforcement lead to what most people describe as "passion".

Think back to your past. When were there moments you felt this effect? What were things you were intrinsically motivated to do in the past? Maybe skills you picked up and later abandoned because life got in the way? Look for possible threads to pick back up again.