When a passion project ceases to be one, we need to look at the expectations we have of it — and what we are willing to do for it.

Passion projects can be tricky, not always in finding out what they are (although that is hard enough), but more in the actual execution of them. They require a lot of effort and all too frequently they attract little (if any) reward.

They are invariably thankless tasks. We can find ourselves grafting for weeks, months, years, even, with no external validation or financial gain of any kind.

Before long, what once made us invigorated will make us feel drained; what was previously a passion will become a pain; what fulfilled us before will leave us feeling resentful.

What can be done, then, about this inevitable side-effect of sticking with our dreams, when there appears to be no external evidence to convince us it is worth sticking at in the first place?

Passion At Any Cost?

There are three parts to look at here:

1. What Drives Us Vs What Pays The Bills
2. If Passion Projects Have To Make Money
3. What We Are Willing To Do (In The Name Of Our Passion)

Let’s look at the first:

1. What Drives Us Vs What Pays The Bills

There is a key difference between being intrinsically and extrinsically motivated, as much as there is a difference in being intrinsically and extrinsically rewarded.

The first kind — being intrinsically driven — is creating-for-creating-sake, i.e. doing something for the love of it. We do this, regardless of reward.

The second kind — being extrinsically driven — is doing something for what we will get for it i.e, money, career progression and so on. We do this, because of the reward.

How Passions Can Falter

By definition, passion projects are intrinsically-driven to begin with. There was a point in time when we did this for the joy of it.

But akin to the law of diminishing returns, what once thrilled us about our passion project will inevitably cease to at some point.

Sometimes we can get back to that basic starting point. We can emerge from our dejected state and rediscover what it was that gripped us so much in the first place — and rekindle it. Our juices can get flowing again.

However, often the reason we can’t do this, is that we fail to notice that a new need has replaced the one that fired us up originally.

And that is invariably about making money.

The Downside Of Thinking Extrinsically

While there is absolutely nothing wrong with desiring money for our efforts, being too driven by financial gain can paradoxically have a demotivating effect.

In a 1971 study, psychologist Edward Deci found that the act of offering an external reward, (i.e. money), to an individual who was already motivated to undertake a task, had the effect of making him less motivated to do it.

When the carrot of money is dangled in front of the eyes of someone who is lost in their passion, blissfully unaware of the world around them, their focus quickly shifts to the money and not the act itself.

And the by-product of that, when it comes to our passion projects, is that our creative libidos can tank.

Which brings us to point number 2:

2. Do Passion Projects Have To Make Money?

Is it a fallacy to believe we will always be financially compensated for doing what we love? And is it perfectly OK to have passion projects which don’t actually make any money at all?

The answer to the 2nd question is a resounding “yes”. It’s called having a hobby.

The 1st question is a bit trickier to answer.

There are more self-help gurus out there than we care to count who will tell us we can make our dreams come true — and get rich doing it.

Even Joseph Campbell told us to “follow our bliss”.

But did he mean in order to make money? Or did he just mean ‘therein lies the path to happiness’?

Ideally you want to get both but what Campbell wanted to stress was that we should not sacrifice one for the other.

We shouldn’t turn our back on our passion for money. But equally if we don’t get that money, the passion is still worth having.

In The Power of Myth, Campbell writes:

“There’s something inside you that knows when you’re in the center, that knows when you’re on the beam or off the beam. And if you get off the beam to earn money, you’ve lost your life. And if you stay in the center and don’t get any money, you still have your bliss.”

Are We Being Delusional By Wanting It All?

The late Barbara Sher frequently spoke of the “obligation” we all have to honour our passions so that we can share our innate gifts with the world-at-large. However, she also argued that these passions didn’t necessarily have to make money, noting that very few dreams actually do (contrary to what YouTube gurus tell us).

She argued (here) that it is a false narrative we present ourselves when we align passion with money. If we use the inability to earn an income from a passion project as somehow proof that it isn’t “ours” to have (and is therefore not worth pursuing), we have missed the point, entirely.

Earning an income and doing something we love are invariably two separate things, no matter how much we want them to be the same, Sher said.

We are effectively shooting ourselves in the foot, then, if we use the former to deny ourselves the latter.

Because realistically, she said, we are not going to be able to easily support ourselves writing poetry all day long.

Having a day-job and a side-hustle or hobby, then, is the first thing to consider at this juncture.

But if that idea makes us recoil in horror, then we need to look at what we are prepared to do in the name of our passion.

And this leads us to point number 3:

3. What We Are Willing To Do

Mark Manson posted an interesting video regarding the issue of what we think we want out of our lives and the reality of actually doing it.

He cites the example of him craving the ideal lifestyle of a surfer (along with the sex appeal that comes with it) but admits that the actual act of learning to surf bores him stupid.

This is the reality vs the fantasy.

As Manson explains in his video, we frequently look to the lives of others and think that’s what we want but we don’t actually want to do what it takes to be like them.

This isn’t a flaw in us, it’s a sign that something isn’t for us.

The Lives Of Others

You might envy the lifestyle of an Instagram influencer who floats around the world looking glamorous and living off the back of multiple 6-figure sponsorship deals.

But if you don’t want your entire life documented in photographs for all to see you’re clearly going to have issues.

The same goes for what we are willing to do in the name of our passion projects.

If we are frustrated at the lack of success we are experiencing but are unwilling to do what it takes to make it successful, we will hit a brick wall.

If we detest basic functions like marketing, promotion or networking, for example — or we don’t like the idea of actually running a business — then we need to ask ourselves a few basic questions.

Basic Questions

So, here is the idiot’s guide to some very basic questions we need to ask ourselves when we are feeling resentful and frustrated over our lack of success.

• Why are we doing this in the first place?
• Is this actually a hobby or something bigger?
• Will anyone else apart from me get value out of this?
• Is it something people are willing to pay for (or ever will be)?
• Is it linked to a viable business model?
• Are we willing to undertake business-like activities? If not now, will this change in the future?
• Do we actually want to run a business?
• Is it better to look elsewhere to bolster our incomes? OR are we prepared to radically re-evaluate what we are willing to do with our passions?

The answers we get at this point might tell us if our frustrations are anchored in delusion, denial or procrastination.

While passion projects can begin as things that ecstatically allow us to escape reality, at some point, particularly if our needs change, we will need to face reality.

If we don’t do this, we risk sabotaging an area of our lives which can bring us unbridled joy, simply by viewing it through a distorted lens.