How Passion Drives Success

What is passion?

Passion can be described as an intense strong feeling or desire for something. It’s having such a strong interest in something that you feel a need to do it, and doing it with intensity.

Everyone has different definitions of what defines passion, but here are some common ones:

For you, your own definition may be different from someone else’s. That’s okay!

Some people say that passion is only related to things that bring you joy, but that isn’t quite right.

Joy is definitely a part of passion, but not every thing needs to make you happy to qualify as passionate.

What about when something makes you angry or frustrated? Or what about when something invigorates you, gives you energy? These all fit into our definition of passion.

We use the term “passionate” to describe people who have done good things — people who saved others’ lives, ran marathons, invested in companies they believe in, and so on.

It also describes people who live their life with intensity – they work hard, strive to achieve their goals, and put in the effort needed to reap the benefits of their efforts.

Find your passion and go for it

If you want to know what will make you successful, look at the people who have done well in past or present, and learn from them.

What makes someone succeed is not necessarily their intelligence or talent, but rather how much they love what they do. They work hard because they enjoy it.

Older generations knew this, which is why they said things like “Work with all your heart” or “Put your soul into it.”

They understood that success comes down to an inner feeling – something beyond just money. It’s being inspired by something bigger than yourself, something that compels you to keep going even when you don’t feel like it.

This doesn’t mean doing what you are paid to do isn’t smart, it can be — but it must go deeper than that. You need to feel it in your bones.

If you ever feel this way about one of your jobs, chances are there’s more pay waiting somewhere else. So find it and pursue it.

Do what you love and the success will follow

We’ve discussed how passion is a motivator, but there are some passions that seem to help you succeed more than others.

Having a goal or purpose that makes you passionate can drive you towards it and then keep you working on it until you achieve it.

Something about this purpose gives you the extra push you need to put in the effort required to reach your goal.

It could be because of who you want to meet, what you want to accomplish, or even what kind of person you want to be. All of these things come down to your personal identity and why you exist in the first place.

Your personal mission statement explains who you are as a person and what matters most to you.

By defining yourself and what matters to you, you create an internal motivation to work hard and succeed.

Because you are invested in your own life, you’re more likely to invest in other people’s lives and contribute to the community. You feel like you have something important to offer.

This feeling comes from within and doesn’t depend on anything else. It is simply you living out your dreams and giving back where you can.

You are also more likely to enjoy what you are doing since it aligns with who you are. Being someone who loves writing may motivate you to write longer articles and books than if writing was just for money.

Being passionate is not enough

Having passion for your career means doing things that make you feel good about yourself, such as putting in hard work, being honest with people, and keeping learning new skills.

Being passionate is not enough to ensure success though. It’s like having a favorite movie and watching it every week – while it may inspire you to do other things, it can be pretty boring!

Success takes more than just feeling some sort of emotion towards what you are doing. You have to know how to manage your emotions and use them to motivate you to keep going.

It also takes working smart, limiting distractions, and finding time to focus solely on accomplishing your goals.

Passion is a great start if you don’t think you will stick with your job, but only the first step on our journey to succeed.

You need to also be smart

Being passionate about something means doing it well. If you are really passionate about dancing, for example, that means practicing your steps outside of class times with passion.

If you’re passionate about reading then make sure you invest in good books and read as many as possible.

It takes work to be great at anything so don’t underestimate how hard it is to succeed.

Focus on being great

Beyond having passion for your career, another key success factor is knowing what you like and why you like it. It’s impossible to succeed if you don't enjoy what you do, but beyond that, you have to be good at it.

So how can you know whether or not you are “good” at something? By practicing daily — and making frequent mistakes!

It sounds crazy, I know, but this is true. The more you practice something, the better you get at it. And making mistakes helps you learn as well. You may feel silly at first, but over time, you will realize it makes a big difference.

I heard about an entrepreneur who would regularly drop off his purse somewhere and go back hours later to find it with all of its contents gone. He made so many mistakes with it that he learned how to stick close by buying a new one.

This works similarly for things such as brushing your teeth or going out for lunch. Over time, you will subconsciously connect doing these things with staying close to the house or the office.

Believe in yourself

Before you can succeed, believe that you are capable of succeeding. If you don’t, then chances are good that someone else will have to do it for you. They'll get all the credit instead.

I've seen plenty of times when people fail to bring themselves fully into their work. They may put in the same amount of effort as everyone around them, but they never really invested in what they were doing.

If you're going to make changes in your life, you need to truly want them. You need to be passionate about moving forward so that progress doesn't feel like an uphill battle.

It takes a lot of work to develop this passion for yourself, which is why there's a first step towards changing your career - believe in yourself.

Believe not only that you can achieve your goal, but that you already have. Don’t wait for others to tell you that you’re talented or hardworking – recognize it for yourself.

By investing in yourself, you're creating opportunities for success. By putting in the time needed to learn new skills, meet new people, and developing self-confidence, you won't have to worry about whetheror not people think you belong here.

Stay positive

This will do wonders for your success in life. Being passionate about what you do is an excellent way to start, but it can be hard to feel passion towards something when nothing seems to change anything.

When you’re doing things that you don’t enjoy, you are still coming home at the end of the day, you’re spending time with your loved ones, and you get paid well – so why should you care?

Your body gets into autopilot mode, and it keeps going because it has been trained to perform certain actions over and over again. Your subconscious mind thinks “This is my job, this is what I have to do every day,” and therefore it comes more easily.

But not everyone was designed to spend their lives performing tasks they no longer believe in — we were all designed to love what we do, and to find joy in our work.

And research shows that people who feel emotionally connected to their jobs are happier than those who don’t.

So if you want to experience happiness at work, learn how to use your passion as a tool. Find activities and experiences that you have an interest in, and invest time in them.

They could be hobbies, skills or courses -- whatever makes you happy. And once you've found one thing that you're passionate about, pursue it.

Use your skills to help others

Being passionate about something means doing it well. If you are passionate about painting, then that means learning how to paint beautifully. If you are passionate about yoga, then that means going into a deep practice.

If you are passionate about teaching other people, then you have to be trained in education. Teaching music is different from teaching art or physical education, but if you’re passionate about educating people, then you should pursue training as a teacher.

Being passionate about something can mean doing it for money, it can mean doing it because you love it, or both. But no matter what kind of passion you have, it will always make you feel good.

It makes you happy when you do things like teaching an educational class, practicing yoga, or writing this article. Your mind feels relaxed and at ease.

This effect will last even after you've finished doing the activity, which is one of the many benefits of being passionate. You'll get some type of feeling relief once you've completed your goal.