Passion is what gets you started, and when refined, it sustains you along the way to success. But passion alone is not enough.
The motivational industry tells us to find and do what we love, and life will be good. Indeed this is true, but there’s more.
I am a writer. I’ve engaged this passion of mine for a long time, and can tell you this with certainty: passion can wane, even if you love what you do.
Normally, people fail to realise that their relationship with their passion is like any other love story. There are moments of hot excitement and times of mundane engagement. The roller-coaster is the same. Therefore, it’s difficult to accept passion as the ultimate key to success.
In the success equation, one factor that’s barely talked about is boredom. As you become more successful, you’ll discover that what you love to do is a small part of the whole; the bulk of it consists of mundane, unrelated activities that you probably dislike and would gladly skip. But then again, you can’t because these boring activities are also significant and must be done if you are to succeed.
Good old discipline
As an entrepreneur, make peace with the fact that boredom is a major key to success – this will give you longevity. But how does it work? It works like this: at the end of the passion road, you’ll find something called the
discipline of craftsmanship. This is what separates the good from the great.
Having the discipline of craftsmanship means that you’ve learned how to produce without motivation. At this level, you do excellent work whether you’re in the mood for it or not, excited or bored – whatever the state. You’ve gained the level of mastery that is not tied to emotions. You don’t need to feel good to work well. That’s how the best function.
As a writer, what does this mean? The discipline requires that I create a writing schedule, and pour in the hours to actually write, meet deadlines, and not bother my editor by hinging my output on my moods.
The real success
Successful people will tell you that a huge part of their daily work is unexciting. They still do it because they understand that mastery of the boring elements is the real success. Largely, craftsmanship isn’t dependent on inspiration. Hence, you show up to work and do a great job without waiting to first feel inspired. Inspiration usually catches up after you’ve started working.
John Williams is a great American orchestral composer. He’s composed music for movies like Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Harry Potter films. Williams has won four Golden Globes, five Academy Awards and 22 Grammys.
In his own words, this is his secret: “I developed from very early on a habit of writing something every day, good or bad. There are good days, and there are less good days, but I do a certain amount of pages, it seems to me, before I can feel like the day has been completely served.” He has mastered boredom and can produce in spite of it.
What’s your attitude towards boredom? Do you quickly dismiss, avoid and disregard it? Maybe it’s time to embrace it. I don’t mean that you should suddenly design a boring existence, but come to terms with the fact that the journey to success isn’t always exciting. There are so many less thrilling aspects that discourage many along the way – if only they understood that the drag is part of the plan. In my generation, once something gets boring, we tend to back down. In some cases, it’s probably a big mistake to avoid boredom.
Blog: theyouideology.com