Passion is a lie (what to do instead)

Building a life you're excited to wake up to is harder than anyone tells you.

We're supposed to choose a career that matters, build relationships that fulfill us, and create a life that we can look back on and feel proud of.

But nobody gives you a manual for this. Nobody teaches you how to design a life worth living.

So most people end up drifting. They take the path of least resistance. They do what's expected, what's safe, and what pays the bills. Then they wake up at 50, wondering how they got here and whether this is really the life they wanted.

Others get paralyzed by all the possibilities. They see so many potential paths that they can't commit to any of them. They spend years searching for their "calling" while life passes them by.

The truth is, you don't find a meaningful life. You build one.

The most common advice to live the "good life" is to follow your passion, and the puzzle pieces will fall into place.

I think this is misguided. From my perspective, most people don't have one clear passion. We're complex beings with multiple areas of interest, many things we'd like to explore in this life, and different paths that could all lead to an exciting and fulfilling future.

Stanford researchers asked this exact question—what's your passion? What they found was that less than 20% of people have one singular, identifiable passion. The vast majority, eight out of ten people, say they have lots of things they're interested in.

Passion isn't something you discover buried deep inside you. It's something you develop through action - by trying things, committing long enough to get good at something, and sticking with it until you start seeing results.

So if you're waiting for that moment of perfect clarity about what you're meant to do, you're going to be waiting forever.

Life isn't about finding your predetermined purpose. It's about designing a life through experimentation and action.

Life design is about getting curious, talking to people, and trying stuff. It's a process of experimentation rather than perfect planning.

I've found the goal isn't to find the one right path you're meant for. It's to figure out what you want to grow into next as your life unfolds. It requires curiosity about possibilities, a willingness to reframe problems, and a bias toward action.

No plan for your life will survive contact with reality, so you need to keep trying stuff rather than perfecting your plans.

Here's a five-step process that helps you do exactly that.

I’ve also created this guide for you to fill out as you work through each step.

Step 1: Connect the Dots

Most people feel scattered because they can't see how the pieces of their life fit together.

Meaning comes from connecting who you are, what you believe, and what you do in the world. When these three things align, your life starts feeling purposeful instead of random.

Here's a simple way to find these connections:

Spend five minutes writing about your work view - why do you work? What's it for? What's work in service of? If you get stuck, ask yourself: What energizes you about work? What drains you? When do you feel most useful? What does good work look like to you?

Then spend five minutes on your life view - what's the bigger picture? Why are you here? What do you believe about how life should be lived? If the blank page is intimidating, try these: What values are non-negotiable for you? What makes life feel worth living? What legacy do you want to leave?

Look at both lists side by side and circle where they overlap. Those overlaps become your compass for making decisions about what opportunities to pursue and which ones to pass on.

When you can connect your life view and work view together, you stop feeling like you're just going through the motions.

Step 2: Identify Gravity Problems

Some problems in your life can't be solved because they're completely out of your control.

These are gravity problems. Your family dynamics. The economy. Company policies you can't influence. Industry changes. Other people's decisions that affect you.

Most people get stuck in a cycle of complaining about these unchangeable circumstances instead of recognizing they can't change them and moving forward with a plan to work within or around them.

Write down three things you've been complaining about for more than six months. For each one, ask: Can I change this? If yes, take action immediately. If no, stop fighting it and start figuring out how to work with it.

Maybe you can't change your company's promotion structure, but you can decide whether to stay and work within it or leave and build something else. Maybe you can't control your family's expectations, but you can choose how much weight to give their opinions.

Identifying gravity problems is essential for life design because it shows you where to focus your energy. You can't design effectively if you're wasting effort on things you can't control.

Once you accept that certain things are simply part of your environment, you can stop fighting them and start designing around them. This clears mental space to focus on what you actually can control and change.

Step 3: Design Three Lives

Most of us have multiple things we'd love to pursue. Different careers that seem appealing. Places we'd like to live. Versions of ourselves we could become. But you only get one life to work with.

For this step, we're going to imagine you could live three different lives simultaneously. Be the entrepreneur and the teacher and the artist all at once. Experience every interesting path that's ever crossed your mind.

Grab a piece of paper and write out three different five-year plans.

First, write out your current life going well. Take whatever you're doing right now and imagine it working out better than you expected. You get better at your job, your relationships improve, and you finally take that trip you've been talking about. Be specific about what your days look like when your current path succeeds.

Second, write out what you'd do if your current situation disappeared tomorrow. Your job gets eliminated, you have to move, whatever forces you to completely restart. What would you choose to build from scratch? Don't worry about being realistic - focus on what would excite you to create.

Third, write out your life with no external constraints. You have enough money and nobody's judging your choices. What would you actually do with your time? Write out what a typical week would look like.

When you see all three on paper, something shifts. You realize multiple versions of yourself could result in a well-designed life. There's no singular "best" version you need to find. Life isn't linear, and there are many ways to build something meaningful.

Step 4: Prototype Everything

The only way to know if you'll like something is to actually do it.

And here's the thing - it's never too late to try something new. There's this cultural pressure that you should have your life figured out by your mid-twenties. They make you pick your major at 18, like you're supposed to know what you want to do for the next 40 years. The idea that you're "too late" if you're 30 and still experimenting is ridiculous.

Set aside focused periods of time to try the things that interest you. Not just research them or think about them - actually do them. You need to experience it yourself. You need to feel what it's like to spend your days doing that work.

If you're considering starting a business, spend a weekend building something small and trying to sell it. If you're thinking about writing, commit to writing for 30 days and see how it feels. If photography seems appealing, spend a month shooting every day.

This isn't about making perfect career transitions. It's about gathering real data on what you actually enjoy doing versus what you think you might enjoy.

Most people stay stuck because they're afraid to commit to something without knowing if they'll like it. But you can't know without doing. The only way to find out is to try.

Give yourself permission to experiment. Set a timeframe, dive in, and see what happens. You'll learn more about yourself in one month of trying than in years of thinking.

Step 5: Choose Well

After you've experimented with different paths, you need to make decisions and commit to them.

The goal isn't to make the perfect choice. It's to make a good choice and then make it great through your commitment.

Use both your head and your gut when deciding. Think through the practical aspects, but also pay attention to how each option feels. Your brain collects emotional data from every experience and communicates it through gut feelings. You need both types of information.

Once you choose, commit fully. People who can't reverse their decisions are significantly happier than those who keep escape routes open. Stop second-guessing and start building. The choice becomes right when you make it work.

You can't ruminate your way to the perfect decision. At some point, you have to pick something good and dedicate yourself to making it better.

This is how you design a life - not by finding the perfect path, but by choosing a good path and building something meaningful through your commitment to it.

Building a life you're excited about isn't about discovering some hidden purpose. It's about creating one through curiosity and action.

Most people spend years waiting for clarity that never comes. They think they need to find their passion before they can start building. But it works the other way around - you build your passion by committing to something and getting good at it.

These five steps won't give you a perfect roadmap. But they'll give you a process for designing your life instead of just letting it happen to you.

Stop waiting for the perfect moment of clarity. Start experimenting. Start building. Start designing the life you actually want instead of the one you think you're supposed to want.

Your life is happening right now. Design it intentionally.

I hope this helps,

Johnathan