Recently, Luke wrote a post arguing if you don't love the process it's okay to leave S&C. As it happens, I have already been meditating on this idea of passion in our field for a while. The reason is because, like I'm sure many of us have, I've seen many friends of mine in S&C and sport science leave the field over the years or struggle to find a job. Soon after reading his attempt, I stumbled upon an interesting post on LinkedIn by a strength coach in the tactical sector. The post went roughly as follows: "If you're leaving collegiate S&C to join the tactical sector because of better pay, better hours, better work-life balance, etc. then you're doing it for the wrong reasons. You need to do it because you have a passion for tactical.". Together, these posts inspired me to explore this nagging question: is our perception of passion correct?

When we consider passion in reference to our work we're usually referring to a strong emotional feeling of excitement, enthusiasm, or desire for what we do. There is absolutely nothing inherently wrong with this idea. All things being equal, it would be quite ridiculous to argue you shouldn't enjoy your work. In fact, when I'm on the floor coaching or I'm deep into figuring out how to make more meaningful insights with the data I've collected, time seems to fade away. I enter a kind of flow state and often leave the session feeling quite accomplished, proud, and passionate about what I'm doing. That feeling isn't contingent upon having passion, but it certainly makes me look forward to these moments each day. Yet how often have you heard that being an athlete, a sports coach, a strength coach, or sports scientist is so demanding that if you don't love the "grind" you'll never make it? Many in our field take it a step further saying that if you're not passionate about this realm of sports performance you should never even start. Passion as a precursor to not only what we do but to finding success in what we do is so entrenched in our belief system that it's almost taken for granted. This idea has taken hold in every career path but seems even more entrenched in our field. Herein lies the issue, we've wrongfully moved passion from a place of output to input.

The Problem With Passion

Earlier I alluded to a friend of mine currently struggling to find a job as a strength coach. He's been on the hunt so long that he's now considering leaving the field entirely. Yet, while he was currently employed I promise you no one would have doubted his passion. Despite collegiate playing experience, multiple internships both at the Division 1 and NFL level, and years spent as a graduate assistant - despite passion - he can't find a job. This is the first problem with passion as a precursor - it's a form of survivorship bias. Survivorship bias is the logical fallacy that occurs when we focus only on the people or things that have "survived" a particular process or situation while ignoring those that did not. If you've spent any time in this field you've undoubtedly heard from those who came before us that it was their passion that got them to where they are at today. We see this on YouTube, at conferences, in books, through our mentors and bosses and we, as a collective field, have concluded it's necessary for success. But those that we tilt our ears to are those that are already in a position of having an audience. We're not considering all the relevant data points, just the small minority that have extended their reach only because of their success. But, like my friend, we rarely hear from those who also had passion but yet didn't make it. It's far more likely that there are an equal number of those who entered this field with passion yet didn't make it and we just never hear from them.

In his book Ego Is the Enemy, Ryan Holiday argues that in your aspiration for success, you shouldn't be passionate. He quotes Kareem Abdul-Jabbar describing legendary coach John Wooden as "dispassionate"; and reminisces on his constant reminder not to be "passion's slave". Passion is a feeling, it's a sense of pleasure from what we are doing. Yet, as Mark Manson suggests, pleasure - and in this case passion - is a pretty bad value. Just ask a drug addict how well basing their life on pleasure worked out. Mark goes on to explain in his book that good values are based in reality, immediate, and controllable. So how does passion measure up on this value scale? First, passion is a bad value because it's not based in reality. This is fairly intuitive, you're not going to love every aspect of what you do for every second of every day and that's normal. There will be days when coaches tell you that you suck at your job, or your boss is a micromanager, or you start to feel burnt out. If you don't love this does that mean you lack the passion necessary for this field? And now you're not living up to your value of always being passionate about your work. Likewise, passion is not truly immediate or controllable. You are not in control of how your boss treats you and you're not in control of a coach's opinion of you despite your best efforts. A better value would be something like self-improvement or competence. Can you get better at what you do? Yes, that is entirely within your control and you can do it now. Can anyone realistically stop you from putting in the time and energy to get better at your job? No.

Rethinking Passion

So what is better than passion? Mastery. In his book So Good They Can't Ignore You, author Cal Newport argues not to do what you love but to learn to love what you do. He mentions a survey of a group of people working some boring job in college administration. When these aids were asked about their satisfaction, there was a positive correlation between job satisfaction and years of experience. So despite staying put in some bottom-of-the-totem-pole job, those with years of experience doing it enjoyed their work more and considered it a calling. These people loved what they did because they had mastered their job. This mastery, or competence, is one of the three basic psychological needs to experience a fulfilling life. This is why the previous story about the old college executive aids makes sense. With more time they became more competent and with more competence they experienced more passion for what they did. So as sports performance professionals we too must experience a sense of competence in what we do. As Luke said, if you hate being in the weight room, or maybe you dread opening up R or Power BI to make another visualization for coaches maybe it's actually because you don't yet believe in what you do and not because you lack passion. You need to put in the time to build "career capital", as Cal calls it. It's the culmination of mastering your environment and what you do, little by little each day, that develops your passion. We've been led to believe that it is motivation that inspires us to act when in reality it is the other way around. We have a limited amount of willpower, we're not always going to wake up with our "piss hot" just because we have some intrinsic level of passion for sport performance that was born into us. As you progress little by little this acts to motivate you more - action inspires motivation. Thus becoming more motivated to do your job. But its these little victories where you see improvement in your own competence that will allow you to continue to love what you do.

But mastery is not all we need, we also need autonomy and relatedness. To experience autonomy we need to feel we're in control of our lives - "you endorse your actions at the highest level of reflection." - Ryan & Deci, 2000. Thankfully, as we get better at what we do, as we build that career capital, we're more likely to experience increased autonomy in our work. Relatedness then represents the need to have close relationships with those we work with - providing us with a sense of belonging and connection. So ultimately Luke and this post I read on LinkedIn aren't entirely wrong. If after some time you realize you have no passion for this work you may be missing one, two, or all three of these needs and that's why it is okay to leave the field. Interestingly, the strength coach who wrote that post is wrong but there is also truth in what he said. He's wrong to suggest that you can only switch sectors if you have some preordained passion for something you've never done before. But he's right to assume you're unlikely to find what you need to become passionate just by switching sectors, as you may face the same obstacles you have in the sport setting. You don't need a new calling or passion lined up before you make a change but you should critically consider if this change is going to provide you with what you need to find that passion.

We've got passion wrong because we've been led to believe it's an input when in reality it's an output. As young professionals, we should reject the idea that passion is something we should put on our resume as a trait that makes us uniquely qualified to be successful. Instead, passion should act as a metric against which we can measure if we are at the right place or doing the right thing to end up loving what we do. As we progress through our careers and we come to realize we're not growing to love what we do then we we should consider making a change. Until that point, we shouldn't believe that passion is what is going to lead us to success. We should adopt better values in the pursuit of a fulfilling career. Focusing on becoming more masterful in what we do little by little every day. In time this will give us more motivation and love for what we do. Take some time to evaluate how this misinterpretation of passion has influenced your career. Think deeply about your values and what you are doing to achieve fulfillment in this crazy career path of sport performance.