“Follow Your Passion” Will Get You Stuck – But So Will Working Hard, Just for the Sake of It

If you look for advice on how to be successful and make it as an entrepreneur, you'll soon encounter "follow your passion", "do what you love most", "dream big and go after your dreams" and other variations of this same idea.

For the most part, this is awful advice. Often given by people who are either delusional or just happened to get lucky themselves.

In today's post, let's take a look at why the idea of following your passion fails and why swinging too far the other way is also not the right solution.

More About the Passion Trap

For today's post, the bulk of my message is in the video. One thing I want to add to this is Oliver Emberton's excellent article about passion and all the ways we get it wrong.

He makes a point I only hinted at in the video and makes it more eloquently than I ever could I highly recommend you read his work.

Passion + Business Savvy

Update: a day after publishing this post I came across a video by a Romanian animation artist called Andrei Terbea which beautifully illustrates the point about needing to combine your passion with work ethic and business savvy. Check it out:

Here are a few other resources and references:

• Here's my take on what I call "hustle mode". Important and useful for getting a new business off the ground. But it's equally important not to get stuck in hustle mode.
• One way to develop passion is to find something you kinda like doing and then do lots of it, to build your skill and deepen your learning.
• Productivity and reaching your goals is important, but it's not all that matters. Make sure that your journey towards success is worth having.

Let me know what your thoughts on this topic are, by leaving a comment below.