Can We Really Be Passionate About Anything Through Discipline?

[Electron]

This question has intrigued me often.  Let's say that you hate football. But that hate usually comes from a negative judgment you have made about it. So even the anticipation of playing football feels repulsive to you. But what if you choose to play football regardless and confront the bad feelings. Soon by repeating the activity, your past beliefs about it will start to change and you might begin to enjoy it.  Now you judge it in a positive way. This makes you incline towards it and makes you practice it even more and this further improves your skill which gains you appreciation. This turns into a positive feedback loop which makes you feel really passionate about football. Now you think it is your calling. But is it? 

Using the principles of Mastery, I think we can certainly be passionate about anything. I think what most people fail to see is that passion comes afterward. First, we have to build a certain momentum through discipline because at the start it feels like shit. After enduring these things, the forces in us begin to align towards that particular aim and we feel more and more motivated.  

If this is right, then how can we use our present inclinations to decide our calling? What if, currently, we are negatively biased against a certain activity but could end up very passionate about it if we go that road. 

[Siim Land]

The question is do you have football at first because you suck at it? But, all in all, everything you think is interesting, find appealing or like to do are the result of your conditioning. From this perspective, you'll always be misaligned with your purpose. I guess the key is making a conscious decision of pursuing a path of mastery and then staying disciplined on it. I would imagine grand master chess players all have an obsessive love-hate relationship with the game - they just want to win.

[LowPlanetary]

So does your area of mastery not matter too much? Since in that case anything i get good at i will  enjoy. But i guess that limits your area of mastery to your natural strengths/inclinations, which is a result of what you happened to have done during your life, especially childhood when your mind is most malleable.

[Truth]

I'd say its not so much what you do but that its what your heart wants, what's most meaningful to you its the internals we're after, not the externals. If football is what's meaningful to you and most authentically you meaning It aligns with your strengths and your values (or inclinations) then that could be your calling. Jumping Into something your biased towards is okay as long as its aligned with those things I mention above in fact its encouraged. Its your job to do some exploring and testing to find that good fit.
This is why its important to know yourself, know what you want out of life. You use that as your compass to know what to choose, and that choice needs to be made, because not choosing at all could be a bigger danger here because when you say biased I hope your not meaning that its not gonna work out. In that case this would definitely be limiting beliefs and you being indecisive in your plan to commit to your one thing, in this case this is definitely your bigger obstacle at the moment.

[Leo Gura]

@Electron You can push things a bit, but you're not going to become passionate about something you don't care about. You have natural passions already within you which must be unearthed, and then cultivated.

What you're asking is sorta like trying to get a ball to roll up hill. Even if you could do it, it's not worth the energy. You want to become more organic as you grow, not more contrived and forceful.

[Huz]

7 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@Electron You can push things a bit, but you're not going to become passionate about something you don't care about. You have natural passions already within you which must be unearthed, and then cultivated.

What you're asking is sorta like trying to get a ball to roll up hill. Even if you could do it, it's not worth the energy. You want to become more organic as you grow, not more contrived and forceful.

Is this a paradox? As it seems when you try to master things you are passionate about, there is huge resistance. This is what I encountered when I studied at uni.

Edited June 4, 2017 by Huz

[Electron]

@Leo Gura

On 6/4/2017 at 4:28 AM, Leo Gura said:

@Electron You can push things a bit, but you're not going to become passionate about something you don't care about. You have natural passions already within you which must be unearthed, and then cultivated.

What you're asking is sorta like trying to get a ball to roll up hill. Even if you could do it, it's not worth the energy. You want to become more organic as you grow, not more contrived and forceful.

But don't you think as one grows as a person, the things that he care about also changes. So what if someone values to be the best swimmer in the world and has been practicing for years but somewhere along the way, as he matures, he starts valuing living a life of service and his dreams start appearing rather selfish to him. Now in his mature psyche, the idea to be the best and win gold medals feels childish. So he is not motivated to work that hard anymore. So would it not be a better strategy to find a new source of motivation (regarding swimming ) which is aligned with the new mature psyche rather than quit swimming altogether and find other career more suitable to the new values?

Edited June 5, 2017 by Electron