If passion is needed to stay consistent in one's endeavors, then..

[7thLetter]

If passion is needed to stay consistent in one's endeavors, then is there even any hope for those who don't have it?

Note: I'm not talking about myself but I'm mainly just seeking more understanding around this idea.

People are different and find their passion in different things than others. People are passionate about legos, pop-toys, superheroes, coding, computers, rocks, gems, collectibles, etc. to name a few. Although, there are other things in life that can be beneficial for everyone in order to improve their life significantly, but not everyone is passionate in those "beneficial" things.

For example, we all know going to the gym and eating healthy is important for your overall health and longevity as a human being. But some of us love going to the gym, some don't. For someone to stay consistent with going to the gym and eating healthy, they have to actually LOVE IT. And sure there's always these diet plans and gym being sold on TV of some man losing 50lbs in 2 weeks, but in my opinion that's all just marketing. And how consistent are they really with that diet or gym routine 3 months from now? 2 years from now? I bet they're back to their old habits. Also when you listen to orange self-help, they tell you things like "If I only went to the gym when I felt like doing it, I would be fat!" "You have to do it, NOW!" Definitely works in the short-term, maybe a year or less. But how about staying consistent with it for 5-10 years? So my question is, is there hope for those who don't have a passion with going to the gym?

Same thing with personal development. Personal development can be beneficial for anyone, and its usually the ones who are passionate about it, who are growing the most, sticking to it long-term, and reaping the benefits of it. When you compare that person to someone who wants the benefits of personal development, but not passionate about personal development, what can they really get done? Cool they'll try to stick to it for 3 months. 3 months later, no passion, no drive, back to their old habits.

Entrepreneurship and business is another one that can be beneficial for almost everyone. It always seems to me that there's only a select few who have an entrepreneurial spirit. Others dream about it, it sounds cool, they talk about it, but they don't really do anything. Is there any hope for these people?

What if there's someone who absolutely dreams and desires to be healthy and fit but with no passion or drive to go to the gym? Maybe his gym habit would last a solid 2 months. So bad luck for him then eh? I mean we can't just come to the conclusion and say that he's lazy right? He has no passion for the gym, but a passion for legos. The gym is not his life purpose. So what can we really do?

I'm starting to think there is no hope. If we think about it the other way, there are a ton of us who aren't passionate about legos. What if we placed some benefits of having a passion in legos, well we're fucked, we have no passion for legos so we can't stick with legos long-term?

Thoughts?

Edited December 15, 2018 by 7thLetter

[Joseph Maynor]

You gotta find your passion first, and then you select work that harmonizes with your passion.  You can actually gauge your passion throughout the day.  Most of us are not really taught to do this, but you can do it as part of your mindfulness.  You could keep a passion journal where you monitor and record your passion throughout the day.  That would be an interesting exercise.  Maybe I should do that as well.

Edited December 15, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[F A B]

@7thLetter

Wow, I completely understand you!

Gym, for me, is a habit. Do you know how many times I've tried to convince friends, parents, and girlfriend to set it as a habit?

I tell them it's not about appearance but it's about health. Do you know how many things you can do within a fit body?

Do you know how much extra energy you can have when it comes to sex?

Yes, this is how I convinced my girlfriend ahaha

But I fear that this motivation won't last anyway...

[7thLetter]

@F A B Right? Even though these things can be beneficial for everyone, sometimes it just seems like its not for everyone. No matter how much orange self-help says “Don’t be lazy! Motivate yourself, get back up!!” Manipulating yourself into action can only bring you so far. The passion is the main thing that brings long-term consistency.

[aurum]

@7thLetter

You're not supposed to have passion for everything. Find what speaks to you and go deep on that.

[7thLetter]

Aw makes me disappointed no one is answering my question or posting at all.

Although I guess the conclusion is that the 95% of people who aren’t passionate about that one certain beneficial endeavor is screwed.

[7thLetter]

@K VIL Maybe I am using the wrong word, passion is necessary in order to sustain something.

From what you’re saying, my understanding is that you’re saying consistency is the solution here. And maybe you’re saying consistency brings passion? But what about my lego example? If someone were to be consistent with building legos and a whole entire business around it without the passion, how would he be able to sustain it? There’s no way he would find passion around it if he wasn’t genuinely passionate about it from the start?

What if we took the example of marrying someone you’re not interested in? If a couple isn’t interested in each other from the start, but got married for the heck of it, then they’ll get divorced within’ a couple years or less.

And when I talk consistency or sustainability, I mean 5+ years. Someone with no passion for something probably could stick with that thing for a year with a lot of discipline, but they’ll probably quit before the 5 year mark.

 

[ivory]

People are motivated by pleasure but shy away from things that are difficult. As a result, people gravitate towards things that are easy and that yield instant gratification. Developing skills and habits is hard so most people don't do anything that requires that level of investment. When you pick up a task, the little achievements result in pleasure and pushing through challenges results in skill. The more skilled you become at something the more pleasurable the thing is. This is how passion for something develops. It's all about commitment and developing the necessary strength and skills that bear the fruit of passion.

[Pilgrim]

28 minutes ago, ivory said:

People are motivated by pleasure but shy away from things that are difficult. As a result, people gravitate towards things that are easy and that yield instant gratification. Developing skills and habits is hard so most people don't do anything that requires that level of investment. When you pick up a task, the little achievements result in pleasure and pushing through challenges results in skill. The more skilled you become at something the more pleasurable the thing is. This is how passion for something develops. It's all about commitment and developing the necessary strength and skills that bear the fruit of passion.

There is definitely lot's of truth to this, yet I would argue that this counts especially for a personality type that is very result-oriented.. most people like to become better in something I guess, but the degree of motivation this provides is still very different I'd say. This approach works probably well for someone with a lot of masculine energy and who is result driven. But for me for instance it's not really enough just to see a result or an improvement of a skill, this does not really provide me with that much joy.. it depends, but I am much more motivated by doing something with someone together and forming a stronger bond with them or doing something out of love for someone else (lot's of feminine energy) or when I can see the bigger picture of something I am doing.. when I think that it's truly beneficial for a larger-scale humanistic goal (very idealistic personality). 

So I guess as usual it's not one size fits all.. it really depends on who you are and what kind of personality you have.. and that determines as well what gives you motivation and what doesn't. So the more authentic you live, the more motivated or passionate you will become.. that's actually the natural consequence.. but you have to be SO honest to yourself. That's the difficult thing.. you can actually not take generic advice from anyone.. you have to make your own tailor-made advice book and test out what works for you and your personality type. I guess a few general things don't hurt such as developing self-discipline and self-control, but this also will be naturally easier and naturally harder for some types (depends on how high your degree of natural impulsiveness is). 

[ivory]

@Pilgrim Nice post.

[Shadowraix]

4 hours ago, 7thLetter said:

Although I guess the conclusion is that the 95% of people who aren’t passionate about that one certain beneficial endeavor is screwed.

Its more that they either have some things they need to work through with their psychology (hence why personal development is so important) or they have yet to find that one passion.

[7thLetter]

@Shadowraix Ok so they’re psychologically underdeveloped, then if they don’t have the passion in personal development in order to grow, then how will they grow at all?

But if we take the lego example, that’s like saying people who aren’t passionate about legos are psychologically under-developed just because they’re not passionate about it?

@K VIL No worries.

Ok sure we can argue that what I stated is an assumption that people want more money and better health. But it can also be an assumption to say that people don’t want it?

I assume so because I’d say the biggest issue for most human beings is money problems. I’d also say the 2nd is health problems. Cancer is an example of these hundreds of health problems out there.

So of course people want more money and better health, but at the same time they’re just not willing to do the work or that they don’t know how to create those results.

[Shadowraix]

8 minutes ago, 7thLetter said:

Ok so they’re psychologically underdeveloped, then if they don’t have the passion in personal development in order to grow, then how will they grow at all?

But if we take the lego example, that’s like saying people who aren’t passionate about legos are psychologically under-developed just because they’re not passionate about it?

Psychologically underdeveloped can only be the case compared to something, in this case it would be compared to some goals. Right because to reach the goal of having a passion you can work on you need to be at a specific point. Comparing it to any arbitrary thing is just a goal-less initiative.

Everybody can improve themselves for their goals, but not all of them will. For somebody to be interested in this problem already shows they have some drive to improve and thats something you can work on. Otherwise they wouldn't even be concerned with where they are at.

Edited December 16, 2018 by Shadowraix

[7thLetter]

@Shadowraix Meant to compare it to someone starting a lego business. And btw I use that example because somewhere in Leo’s Life Purpose course he mentions a story of some guy who had a life purpose in legos and created a successful business around it.

So what about you and I? Assuming that your life purpose isn’t legos, how can we build a business around legos and sustain it if theres no passion?

I know plenty of people who are interested in improving themselves but never stick with it.

[Joseph Maynor]

 

Edited December 16, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[Toby]

Passion as a word actually means "suffering". It's not even a positive word. People tend to confuse "passion" with "interest" or "inspiration". "Passion" as such is - for me - a rather primitive overemotional force that creates suffering. In german passion means "Leidenschafft" which actually even means "creates suffering" even though people here also use it in a "positive" way.

Edited December 16, 2018 by Toby

[Zigzag Idiot]

9 minutes ago, Toby said:

Passion as a word actually means "suffering". It's not even a positive word. People tend to confuse "passion" with "interest" or "inspiration". "Passion" as such is - for me - a rather primitive overemotional force that creates suffering. In german passion means "Leidenschafft" which actually even means "creates suffering" even though people here also use it in a "positive" way.

I agree very much. 

Passion is being identified with something so much we forget ourselves. 

Anger, lust, blind ambition,,,,,

[7thLetter]

@Toby Wow I searched that up and wiki has a pretty good explanation for what you’re talking about. And I think it has the answer I was looking for the whole time.

I don’t want to try to explain it without reading the whole thing but it doesn’t really say passion = suffering, it mentions there’s different types of passions. 

Here’s the wiki: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passion_(emotion)

[Preetom]

@7thLetter

I'm glad that someone brought up this topic. I've been thinking about it for the last couple of days.

I see all over the internet ''just do it'' mantra, how David Goggins was lazy at first but conquered all his bitching and moaning...but the question is, why doesn't it work. It only works in like less than 1% cases. Which made me think how difficult it is to actually make a whole civilization or tribe more advanced.

Looking at our own lives, clearly it takes stupendous amount of time, backsliding, engaging, giving up, re-engaging just even to make some superficial change like changing one little habit here, changing one little thinking pattern there...imagine how complex it must get when applied in a mass population.

I guess we have to accept at some point that, no explanation is perfectly complete. Just the fact that we are breathing now and it is sustained, really has no explanation. Sure we can make up models, so called biological scientific models but everything collapses at certain point..

[BjarkeT]

Yes passion is a side effect of getting good so you don’t need passion in order to do something long term.

i recommend reading so good they can’t ignore you by cal Newport where he debunk the passion hypothesis which is basically the idea that you need to find your passion and then you will love what you do what you need to do instead is getting good and then passion comes as a side effect not before.

alternative you can use what’s called loss aversion to do things that take consistency which is basically the idea that you are more motivated to do something if you have something to lose(for example money if you don’t  accomplish your goal)

i also recomend looking up the bulldog mindset which may help as well.

Edited December 16, 2018 by BjarkeT