Induced Passion: How To Become Passionate About Something You Hate

Passion is BS! Just find something that pays the bills and grind!

How many times have you heard this advice from new-generation coaches?

Yes, it is true that what you are naturally passionate about might not be able to pay the bills, but you still need passion. You will give up if you don’t have passion.

Every successful entrepreneur is passionate. They may not like what they do, but they are passionate.

Passion is simply drive— self-drive, inner drive. It is having enough energy from within to push you to do or achieve something regardless of the hurdles you will have to overcome. 

I have come to understand through close examination that not all passions are natural. Passion can be induced as well. And this was responsible for the changes I experienced.

This means you can be completely unconcerned about the cause until certain events occur in your life that change your disposition towards that cause.

Think of a girl who was raped at 21 and became a women’s rights activist thereafter and you can grasp what induced passion means.

Related: Is Self Discovery Needed For Entrepreneurship And Business?

Natural passion— what we’re used to

When passion comes naturally, the drive comes from a place of enjoyment or energizing. So someone keeps playing the guitar despite the sores in their finger because they enjoy it.

And another person keeps doing research for academic papers because it energizes them. This is what we are used to when we have passion conversations.

But what do you do as someone who needs to get a daunting task done but doesn’t have the passion for it? Heck! How do you make money from things you hate when your passion can’t pay the bills?

Here are four ways I have found to induce passion in something that doesn’t naturally energize or excite you.

4 Ways Passion Can Be Induced

1. Ego Defence

Humans develop a drive to get even difficult tasks accomplished if their egos are on the line. This is what is underplaying when you are trying to prove a point.

For instance, Michael’s dad disowned him when he was 16 because he kept on bringing shame to the family and couldn’t succeed at anything. His ego was stung and he lived all his life after that trying to prove to his dad that he could succeed.

He did gruesome jobs, subjected himself to difficult routines, worked for unbearable hours, and became a multi-millionaire at 30.

He didn’t enjoy all the work, he wasn’t naturally energized or excited, but he had passion. He had a drive fuelled by the protection of his ego.

2. Fleeing a pain

Fleeing pain is a more common inducer of passion.

A simple and everyday example of this is when you are too tired at night to properly lay your bed before jumping on it. But you become super energized if you see something that looks like a scorpion on the bed.

This type of energy doesn’t only come when you see scorpions. It transcends every area of life. We are more energized to move away from pain than we are to move toward pleasure.

So while you might not get motivated to read for an exam to graduate with a first class, you might be more energized to read when you discover you are on the brink of being evicted from the school for poor grades.

If you find a pain you so badly want to run from you’ll get passionate.

In this last example, you can however become energized to chase first class if your ego is attached to it. Many high-performing students have egos attached to their results.

3. Satisfying a base-level need

It is important to bring this up just after stating that we are more motivated to run from pain than to run towards a desire.

There are some human desires that are so fundamental to a satisfying life that we cannot do without them. These are psychological needs which I call base-level needs.

They are a sense of security, variety, significance, love, sense of growth, and a sense of contribution.

Even without wanting more in life, most of the activities you are currently energized toward are motivated by a desire to satisfy these six base-level needs.

So here in my community in Nigeria, I see several boys in their twenties hustling and jumping on any opportunity that looks like it could bring them a fortune because they believe no one will respect (significance) or love them if they aren’t wealthy.

Some others just want assurance about their future (a sense of security) and it continues that way.

If you can identify how a certain achievement can help you achieve your base-level needs, you’ll become passionate about it.

If you also look closely at this passion inducer, it is a mixture of ego defense and fleeing pain. Your eagle will be stung if no one respects you and it is a great pain to live a lonely life.

4. Understanding a deep pain

Now this brings us back to the story of the 21-year-old girl who was raped and became a women’s rights activist thereafter. Her passion is born out of a pain she now understands. s

She’s not trying to avoid the pain (as in #2) because she has gone through it already. But she’s trying to help others overcome or not go through that pain. 

Whenever she feels tired from the demands of activism, she remembers the pain she felt and it fuels her again. 

This too is passion. It is drive! 

What is the difference between inherent passion and induced passion? 

Inherent	Induced
You are born with a drive for the activity	you get to drive for the activity as a result of certain event
You endure the demands of the activity for its sake (it energizes or excites you)	You endure the demands of the activities for something else you want e.g. freedom from pain
You have some level of excitement or energy for that activity throughout your life	You have the energy as long as you are chasing your goal. It dies with the goal.