Cultivating Passion

One important trend I’ve observed over the years is: I really enjoy working on teams where my teammates are passionate about their work. I think it’s because there’s something different about working with people who care. Working with them inspires me to do my job better. But here’s the thing – passion isn’t something you are simply born with. It can be cultivated. And in my experience, the best way to do that is by setting small, concrete aspirations that lead to meaningful results¹.

What’s more, the journey of cultivating passion towards something will teach you some lessons along the way, likely making you better at it than others who did not go through this process².

Aspirations

So how do you cultivate passion? It’s really simple. Start with an aspiration. An aspiration is a desire to achieve a singular result. It is a desire that you can create within yourself, artificially, through internal or even external motivation.

Here’s an example: say you want to cultivate a passion for gardening. An aspiration that will help here could be (for example):

• Growing a tomato plant, so you can use the tomatos to make pizza sauce
• Planting a few succulents which can be gifted to a friend

Notice that the aspiration is much clearer and more concrete, when compared to the target passion (gardening). A good aspiration should:

1. Be easy to get started with (beginner friendly).
2. Be Something that will end in the near future. Jumping into gardening by growing a coconut tree is a bad idea.
3. Lead to a tangible result that you personally find useful.

That final condition is extremely important. In order to care about the aspiration, you need to care about the result. I personally find myself simply giving up unless there’s something in it for me.

One other useful fallout of this approach is - it makes it very easy for me to understand whether I’m really interested in the passion itself.

Using aspirations as stepping stones

It’s immensely helpful to use these small aspirations as stepping stones. Story time: back in 2018, I had become extremely unfit, even though I was relatively young. The smallest hikes seemed insurmountable, and climbing a long flight of stairs was a daunting task. I’d neglected my health in favor of my job and grad school, and my body had made me aware that it needed some attention.

I decided to cultivate a passion for outdoor running. I had no idea how to approach this. I did know that literally any distance would be challenging for me though. So I set up my aspiration: Run 400 meters (0.25 miles). Sounds ridiculous, but it took me a month to get there. From there, I aspired to longer distances (3km, 5km and 8km). When I got comfortable enough, I changed tracks and started aspiring for faster pace. Eventually, I ran multiple half marathons, and now, I am really passionate about running. I’ve developed a genuine interest in the sport, and I love learning more about it.

But not every passion sticks forever. Some fade over time, while others deepen as we continue to invest in them. Case in point: after watching a few of the Wristwatch Revival videos, I thought it would be fun to get into watch restoration. I bought a repair kit, and a watch mechanism to practice on, but it turned out that hunching over the tiny³ contraption for hours at a time was not for me.

Remaining passionate

While I’ve found my approach great at developing passion, I’m afraid that in my experience, some things are meant to stick, and some others tend to fade away. Some others come and go, and that’s alright. Your experience and memories will not fade away… and that’s what really matters.