Stay afloat when your passion bores you.

Passion is one of most overrated terms in recent times — every now and then I hear about someone very passionate about something, and yet it doesn’t impress me any more. The person may be passionate, but the term has been used and abused for so long, it doesn’t carry the weight it used to.

It is now no longer enough to tell someone that I am very passionate about so and so — until and unless it shows up in your activities or even better, as end result, people are very unlikely to take you seriously.

There is nothing new about this phenomenon though. People are used to this way of thinking for quite some time now. It is simple, to be taken seriously, you need to show what you’ve done or created.

This is because having a passion is easy, pursuing it is tough — look around and you’ll find people saying things like, “I start with good intentions, but I can’t maintain my consistency for a long period of time.”

Or, “I struggle with endurance. I get started but I can’t seem to follow through and stay focused for very long.”

Or, “I’ll start one project, work on it for a little bit, then lose focus and try something else. And then I’ll lose focus on my new goal and try something else. And on and on.”

You may have faced this yourself — as you start building something it goes great for first few days. But slowly, problems start appearing, whether technical, mental, social, or something else. Going gets tougher, and suddenly other ideas, tools and fields start to look interesting.

When there are problems and people lose interest in what they’re doing, they get depressed thinking that successful people have some unstoppable passion and willpower that they seem to be missing. But that’s not true!

From outside, it looks like getting motivated and pumped up to work on your goals is the only requisite to create something big. Whether it’s business or sports or art, you will commonly hear people say things like, “it all comes down to having enough passion.” But, continuing the work even if you’re bored is the key.

Getting bored is basic human nature — even if everything were perfectly alright while you build something, at some point in time you’ll be bored.

How you respond to this boredom is what matters.

Almost anyone can work when they feel good. But what about when nobody is paying attention? What about when the work isn’t easy? What about when you’re not getting the results you expected?

You need to understand that successful people don’t have a magic button that resets their mindset whenever they feel bored. They feel the same you do, the only difference is how they respond to it.

If you look at the people who are consistently achieving their goals, you will realize that it’s not the events or the results that make them different. It’s their commitment to the process. No matter how boring or dull the activity feels, they continue to find a way to get around it.

To sum it up

Success is the result of ability to train one’s minds to fend off the boredom and negative thoughts. Success comes when you develop the capability to stay true to yourself and gauge your progress objectively. Success comes when you no longer wait for validation at intermediate levels — rather enjoy the process of building and learning.

Success comes when you are at ease with the boredom tough work brings!