Newsletter #3: Decoding the “Chase your passion” advice
Last week, I watched this video by Cal Newport, in which he goes in-depth about the idea that the advice “Chase your passion” is misguided. In this post, I will share what I learned from his video.
I have broken down the concept into 3 parts,
The issue with “Chase your passion”
When someone gives this advice, they assume the listener already knows their passion. In reality, people don’t know their passion, partly due to not having tried enough things and partly because of inexperience. The second part is especially true for recent grads. (Yes I’m speaking from experience :P)
In addition to this, another issue with following your passion is that many people find that converting a passion into a job, makes the fun disappear. This is easy to imagine as if we start pursuing our passion as a job, we get it with deadlines, the anxiety of meeting the said deadlines, constant pressure of making financial progress, etc. This is precisely what makes a job a miserable proposition. So in effect, most of the time, our passion is valuable because it affords us creative freedom because of a steady job.
From personal experience, I like to shoot photos of birds and animals and I have been doing it for 10 years now. Here’s a picture that I have taken that I like:
Although I love doing it, sometimes I have to visit a place 10s of times to get a good shot. Now as long as it is my hobby, the number of times I have to go doesn’t matter. So I look forward to the trip each time. However, if I was shooting for a magazine or a documentary, suddenly each missed attempt is more pressure added.
The Solution
What is the correct way to build the career you want? In the video, Cal explains that the goal is not to follow your passion but to learn to be passionate about your job.
Getting to the Solution
Without concrete steps of learning to be passionate about your job, it also becomes the same trite advice as following your passion. Cal explains the way in two steps,
Finding a skill that the market values and getting good at it through deliberate practice.
Use your skills to leverage the things that matter to you.
I recommend watching the entire video for an in-depth explanation of both the steps, but in short, it can look something like this,
Let’s say you figure out that you can code. You know in the world of computers and software, this is a valuable skill. Now with deliberate practice, you can become a good coder. Getting good means able to solve problems posed to you, even though you might not be the next Linus Torvalds. Now that you are valuable to the company or the project that you are working on, you can leverage it to build a life that you aspire to. For example, if you like to work out between 6 pm - 7 pm, you can say I will be unavailable during those hours. Since your coding skills and practice regimen is allowing you to work out (do something that truly matters to you), you will be passionate about coding.
So that is it, that’s the advice. I will add again, that the video I am referring to, albeit short (12 mins), has a lot more insights on how to hone your skills as well as how to set your goals and define your ideal life. So do check it out.
That’s it for this issue. I hope you found this article interesting. Until next time!
An article I found interesting: In this article, the author explains how we overestimate how well people can read what we are feeling, a phenomenon called “The transparency bias”.
A podcast I found interesting: A fascinating tale of dedication, hard work, and perseverance of an Indian Mountain climber who scaled Mount Everest.