Why Passion is Overrated (instead, here’s what you should do)

I often hear people say if they only had a real passion, they would be able to follow it, break free from their mundane job and create their dream life.

But what to do when you don’t have a passion? Are you just supposed to wait until it one day magically drops from the sky to rescue you?

I feel there’s this mistaken belief, that some people ‘have a passion’ for something, which enables them to live a fabulous, meaningful life, whereas others don’t and thus are stuck in the hamster wheel.

When I look back at my last business, an innovative health product, it all started because I was desperate to get out of my first business, which at the time was a luxury franchise in India. What do I love doing I asked myself? I felt completely blank and confused. It didn’t help that well-meaning family member and friends just told me to follow a different passion. What if I didn’t have one?

This is where a lot of people get stuck.

I was certainly stuck until I realised that doing something is better than doing nothing. You learn a lot from doing something. Anything is better than nothing.

I went into the kitchen, with the sole aim to lose myself in the creative process of baking a cake. I like baking as it relaxes me, and I enjoy it even more when I manage to make a cake which is healthy AND delicious.

Never for a moment did I think my pursuits in the kitchen would result in a new career direction (which, for a while, it didn’t.)

Here’s the best part:

What I didn’t know at the time, was that I had sparked my own curiosity. I started experimenting with unusual and obscure ingredients, such as ‘superfoods’ from exotic countries. Although many of my creations bombed (spirulina cake, never again please), some were edible, and a few even delicious. Now I got even more hooked on finding weird ingredients online, and this is when I for the first time stumbled upon cricket flour. Roasted, pulverised, insects.

Why would anyone add ground up insects to a cake you may ask? Well, first of all crickets actually taste a bit like roasted nuts, they’re healthy (high in protein), and second, farming insects is extremely sustainable.

What if I could mix some of this cricket flour into a healthy snack, and sell it to health and environmentally conscious people? I got hooked!

THIS was the point where I can truly say the project became a passion.

But this was 6 months after looking for a new ‘passion’, not finding it, and instead showing curiosity in what I’d call my ‘mild interest in baking’.

This is the word I want to emphasize – curiosity.

It’s like a milder, more accessible version of passion. Passion can seem intimidating and out of reach, only available to a lucky few. Curiosity on the other hand is available to everyone. You just need to follow one, small clue, and see where it takes you. Then follow the next clue, and the next, and the next.

This is how you can eventually expect to discover amazing new things, including passions.

Look at it this way – having a passion means giving all your attention and energy to whatever is in front of you right now. Not only does it feel exciting and meaningful, it is certainly more worthwhile than doing NOTHING but waiting for passion to fall into you lap.

I’d love to know if you have ever been in a situation where your initial interest in something turned into a full-blooded passion?

Christine is a Life & Business Coach and works with driven professionals who are stuck on a career path without excitement and purpose. She takes a big picture approach and looks at where career and lifestyle interconnect, in order to achieve profound, long-term satisfaction.

www.christinecoaching.co.uk