Make Your Own Lane: What Is More Important – Passion or Craft

Follow your passion
That is old school now.

In fact the following have been our slogans for a while now

Find your true North
We enable people find their IKIGAI

It still is. Just that what you need to find before that - is a skill that you want to be good at, a craft that you want to work on.

Cal New port in his book So Good They Can't Ignore You highlights the basic difference between craftsman mindset and passion mindset as follows:

The craftsman mindset focuses on what you can offer the world.

The passion mindset focuses on what the world can offer you and thrive

Being good in what you do

Making a living from what you love to do actually sound great. However you tend to love the work you do when you become good in whatever you do, become aware of your work's impact on people, business, environment and the outcomes of what you do.

Being competent in what you do

You do not become passionate about anything over night. Those who work on their craft, long enough to be good or best in what they do - often turn to become passionate gradually about what they do.

Studies highlight competence as one of the key factors to feel motivated for your work. When you master a craft, passion is its byproduct. It is not really the other way round – If you are passionate, you automatically do not become good in what you do.

Being happy

People who have passion mindset tend to focus on what the world offers and what their work offers – the attention is towards seeking which raise expectations and disappointment as it makes you aware about what you do not like about the work, and even worse if the expectation is not met, as hoped.

In Cal Newport’s words you need to build up rare and valuable skills—career capital—to offer in return, when you want a great and satisfying job.

The magical number

Researches  and psychologists claim, true expertise, the idea of excellence at performing a complex task requires minimum ten thousand hours of practice.

Before I let you introspect how many hours have you invested to learn any one of the following skills:

Foreign 

Language

Business writing

Creating presentations

Writing business plans

Planning a white paper

Designing a website 

Closing a deal 

Pitching

Travel writing

Blogging

Digital Marketing

Creative writing

Logo designing

You got the point by now.

You could be sitting poolside relaxing in an Indian food joint or Café or enjoying the view of greenery from your balcony in a home stay not because your trip is sponsored by the travel magazine you write for, not because you are passionate about traveling or about writing but because over a period of time you became good in writing which fueled your passion for both - writing and travel.

There's a ton of effort to make before you get to that point – find out what you are good at, what you can be good at – and if you are ready to practice for that many hours - the magical number.

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