Motivation follows action

I gave a talk at my Toastmasters club a while ago titled "Beyond Passion." The idea was that we overrate passion, that we treat it like something we need to feel before we can do good work, like we need a burning desire before we can start writing or studying or building anything.

But while preparing for that speech, I realized the irony. I did not feel passionate about writing it. I was tired, I had research to do, I had other things pulling at my attention. If I had waited to feel passionate, I never would have written a speech about not waiting for passion.

So I forced myself to sit down and write the first sentence, then the second, and somewhere around the third paragraph, something shifted. I would not call it passion exactly, but I was no longer dragging myself through the work. The work was pulling me forward.

I think about this whenever I am staring at a difficult task, a consulting case I do not want to start, a data set that looks like it will take hours to clean. I used to wait until I felt ready, but now I just start. The feeling comes after, if it comes at all.

I do not think passion is the thing that starts the fire. I think it is the heat that shows up once you have been working for a while.