Passion vs. Talent: How to Know Which to Pursue

By: Sophia Ronga / October 22, 2019

When I was in high school, someone mentioned a quote that really resonated with me.

“Instead of doing what you think the world needs, do something that sets your soul on fire, because the world needs more people whose souls are set on fire.”

That quote is good. Good, like, base your college major off it good. Good, like, live your life as if this is the only career advice you’ll need good. Good, like, reference it in your high school graduation speech, good. It’s really good.

The problem is that it’s misguided.

Don’t get me wrong. You shouldn’t pursue something that you hate, just because you think someone expects it of you. *Cue the meme of every Disney movie ever with the Dad saying “but son, you’re giving up on your dream” and the son claps back with “no, Dad, I’m giving up your dream.”* But the idea that you should base your career trajectory based solely on your passions is a recipe for developing resentment toward your passion and pursuing something you’re no longer interested in.

Why pursuing your passion is a bad idea

There’s recent research out from Stanford that the advice to “pursue your passion” is predicated on a few faulty misconceptions. The first is that you are passionate about one thing and that thing is not likely to change. But this is bananas. Do you know how different Post Grad’s Sophia’s thoughts are compared to Five Years Ago, Freshman in College Sophia? The former is passionate about making homemade pasta, analyzing large sets of data, and learning more about entrepreneurship. The latter was passionate about all-star cheerleading, Model UN, and making homemade pasta (some things never change).

Your passions can develop as you do. As you learn more, experience more, and do more. Pursuing something as fleeting as your “current passion” might either leave you A. changing what you’re pursuing every so often B. losing interest in something you were once passionate in and are still pursuing.

The second faulty idea is passion will lead to hard work - do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life, right? You’ll love what you do so much that it won’t ever feel too hard? You can always do it? Not exactly how the Stanford research found. In fact, they found the contrary: people with one single passion were more likely to abandon that passion when “the going got rough.”

I’m going to go ahead and directly quote a sentence from the paper, because it so perfectly encapsulates what they were demonstrating: “Urging people to find their passion may lead them to put all their eggs in one basket but then to drop that basket when it becomes difficult to carry.”

Use your talent instead ...

Instead of doing something you’re solely interested in, experts argue that you should aim to pursue something you’re really good at.

There are a couple pieces of evidence that support this argument. The first is that your talents are more likely than your passions to actually pay the bills. No one pays me to make homemade pasta whenever I have half a package of semolina flour left (yet) but plenty would pay me to help consult on business strategies under the guidance of a few management consulting partners.

The second, and much more important, piece of this argument is that passion actually comes from doing something valuable, rather than the other way around. It’s talent - being recognized for your talent, noticeably improving in your talent, and working to achieve mastery of something - that in turn makes you more likely to stick to something.

By pursuing your talent, in an environment that allows your talents to blossom, you’re likely to develop new interests (because they’re always changing, remember?) and find passion in doing something you were already good at.

… but always keep developing your passions, just in case

I want to make it very clear that I would never officially endorse abandoning all passions and doing something you hate, just because you’re good at it. But there are other ways to develop those passions beyond turning it into a full-time job.

Continue to do your passion on the side or allow it to blossom into its own little hustle. But keep developing it in conjunction with other things that you have going on (re: your talents paying the bills). If it’s going well, you’ve made it through hardships, and you have had enough experience to know you won’t “drop your basket” when the going gets rough? Go for it. Pursue that passion. Pick up that basket.

Just always make sure that you don’t put all your eggs in it.