Passion or Money: What do I choose?

Whether it’s a sports person, an actor or a business mogul, almost every super successful and super-rich person that you have heard of began their journey by following their passion.

So, you must choose passion, and it would take you to success and riches.

But are you sure about that?

This guy doesn’t seem to be very happy about following his passion.

At the end of the day, his passion doesn’t pay the bills, children’s education or the rent.

Money pays for all of that.

So, the logical thing to do is take up the job that pays well, even if you are not passionate about what you would do at that job.

But what about being excited about doing something you love?

What if you are earning a lot of money but are miserable and hate your job?

Following your passion would allow you to wake up excited every day, and you would just love your life.

Do you see how frustrating it can be to choose between a career you are passionate about and a career that pays you well?

Ideally, you want both.

You know what? You can have both. And that’s what you will learn in this blog.

Let’s get started.

Passion is a luxury not everyone can afford

Not everyone has the luxury to “follow their passion”.

Yes, following your passion is a luxury – one that no everyone can afford.

Consider these common situations.

• Your parents have a mountain of debt, and you need to pay them off and free your parents.
  
  
• You come from a poor or lower-middle-class family, and you must support your family financially.

I’m sure either you or someone you know closely would have experienced one or both of these situations.

In both these cases, your primary goal would be to start earning asap. 

You wouldn’t care about having a passion, even if you wanted to.

If you didn’t start earning quickly, your parents would go hungry and not be able to afford their medical bills.

Passion can go to hell. Earning as much money as possible is the primary goal here.

But if this is the reality of your life, does that mean you can never be passionate about anything?

The answer is – you can.

You can be passionate about your work.

But to understand that, you must first understand what being passionate truly means.

Everything we know about passion is wrong

If you ever searched for motivation posts on Instagram, you would know that 90 per cent of those posts advise you to follow your passion.

Which is not really a bad thing.

But it’s been grossly misunderstood.

We think that passion comes first, that we must have a passion for doing something.

And that’s where we run into the problem of I don’t know what I’m passionate about.

Of course, we don’t. How can we know what we are passionate about?

You don’t suddenly wake up one day in the morning and realise that you are passionate about something.

It doesn’t work like that. Passion doesn’t come first.

You do not first have to have a passion for being able to do something. You do something first and then experience passion.

Let me explain what that means.

The worst advice you will find anywhere is, “Find your passion”. 

You don’t find your passion. You find something else, which then leads you to passion.

And that something else is a vision or a purpose.

According to Simon Sinek, passion is not an input. It’s an output.

You experience passion after you do something you believe in. When you work towards a greater purpose, you feel passionate.

The purpose or vision could be anything. You might want to work for a company that believes in the things you believe in.

You might want to build a multi-million dollar business by solving a problem for the people.

Or, you might want to work for charities and help people in need.

Your vision and purpose could be anything. 

You could even find passion in the job that you do. 

In every job role, you must follow a certain process to complete tasks satisfactorily.

When you enjoy working through that process and see that the results you produce contribute to the growth and success of your employer, you would experience passion.

Once you understand this and move away from the traditional thinking of “following your passion”, you will be able to find passion in anything you do.

Even if you are working to support your parents financially. 

That too is a vision – to give your parents a comfortable life.

You can’t be passionate & earn well if you don’t know yourself well

Ok, so you have a vision.

It could be to become the most respected entrepreneur in the world or be the employee that produced results that led to massive success to the organisation.

Whatever it is, to work towards your vision, you must use your abilities and talents.

Without the right skills and talents, you can’t do what you need to do to reach your goals.

Without them, you can’t build a big company or be an impactful employee for your employer.

And if you can’t do them, you are not contributing toward your purpose, and in the end, you are not experiencing passion… or earning the money you need.

That’s why it’s essential that you identify your strengths and weaknesses in terms of abilities, talents, traits, interests and aptitudes.

You might need to have specific abilities to achieve your goals. And you might find out that you don’t have those abilities or that those abilities are weak.

That’s nothing to be worried about. You can always work on improving them.

Once you identify what you are good at and what you are bad at, you can improve your weakness and get better at your strengths.

Then you can employ these strengths and contribute to your vision/purpose.

By doing this, you can choose the right professions and job roles that play to your strengths.

You use your abilities to produce outstanding results for your employer. You get recognition and appreciation for your work.

You love working with them. You experience passion.

You are always passionate about work. You earn well because you bring so much value to your employer.

And that’s how you can be passionate and earn well, at the same time.

You don’t have to choose between passion or money. You get to have both.

Conclusion

The way people think and talk about passion is wrong.

It makes passion something only a few selected individuals can afford.

By understanding what true passion is, you don’t have to choose between passion and earning money,

You can have both.

Do you have a vision or a purpose? Let me know in the comments below.