“Passion Is the Result, Not the Cause of Action.”
“Follow your passion” is useless advice for several reasons, but mostly because it tells us to stick to a single path that we already feel very strongly about. As Stephanie O’Connell, a personal finance expert, explains, passion is not what you have, it’s what you discover.
You only discover your passion when you start to act – how do you know if you love something or not if you have never experienced it? As O’Connell, who is also an actress, explains:
Passion is the result, not the cause of action. The idea of becoming an actress out of nowhere did not occur to me – I was in the play and I liked it, so I looked for more opportunities to perform. In other words, I found my passion in deeds, not in thoughts.
The prevailing myth of passion suggests that it is the result of some magical explosion of inspiration, but in reality passion is revealed through action, research, and work.
We’ve touched on this idea before , but I think it’s an important distinction when it comes to “follow your passion” advice. If we can rethink the way we think about it, passion will no longer be what we are working on – it is what we are actively discovering. And it’s much more interesting, realistic and tangible.
Check out what else O’Connell has to say about this in the link below.
30 lessons learned 30 | Stephanie O’Connell