“Do What You Love” Is Bad Advice

“Most enjoyable activities are not natural; they demand an effort that initially one is reluctant to make. But once the interaction starts to provide feedback to the person's skills, it usually begins to be intrinsically rewarding.”

~Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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The most common advice given to young people trying to find their way in the world is to do what you love.

Here’s why this is bad advice…

Natural Aptitudes and Interests

It is natural for people to gravitate towards activities they are good at. Take sports, for example. You likely focus on one or two sports you enjoy during your free time, perhaps pickleball or weightlifting. Personally, I enjoy playing basketball. I’m not a professional, but I am better than the average player. My above-average skills are a result of countless hours spent in empty gyms during my youth, honing my game, improving, and becoming competent in various areas necessary to score, defend, and win games.

Today, I enjoy playing basketball weekly because I’m already good at it. It would be no fun if I couldn’t make a basket or kept getting my ankles snatched on defense every play.

I have no desire to play at a professional level, but I enjoy playing because I’m already good at it.

People like to do things they’re good at.

Conversely, I avoid playing golf with my friends because, to put it bluntly, I suck at golf. Not because I am inherently destined to be a bad golfer, but because I haven’t put in the time to develop my swing, my putting game, or learn the ins and outs of performing well on the golf course. If I were born with the innate ability to hit hole-in-ones every time I touched a golf club, I’d be making millions on a PGA tour right now.

What I’m getting at, is people tend to avoid activities they aren’t good at, which often prevents them from discovering their true calling.

The Paradox of "Do What You Love"

The advice to “do what you love” places a ceiling on a person’s ability, forcing them to pursue career paths where they have already found success. This is paradoxical because when you’re young, you’re not really good at anything. Everyone starts somewhere.

Some people choose to focus on specific areas of their life to improve, whether it’s their health, relationships, building skills, making money, etc… Over time, people become good at things.

There isn’t some invisible ceiling placed on you. There are no rules. You are not restricted to being good at only one thing. Just because you could dunk at 16 years old doesn’t mean you can’t write the next New York Times best-selling novel years down the road.

If I had followed the advice of doing what I loved, I would probably be developing video games right now. It’s what I enjoyed doing when I was young. I was good at it because I taught myself how to program, made games as a kid, and was always tinkering with software.

Embracing the Unknown

One day, I decided to download Blender, an open-source 3D software. It was extremely overwhelming at first. I was bad at 3D because I didn’t know how to use the software. There were so many different buttons and tools, and the learning curve was huge. I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

For an entire year, I would open the software, stare at a blank workspace, and then close it. I repeated this over and over again. Then, one day, I forced myself to make something. I did that repeatedly, diving into the unknown and making a conscious effort to explore something foreign to me.

During the first two years, I didn’t even like using the software. It took so much time just to create simple things, and my ancient computer could barely run the program without crashing. But I yearned to bring the ideas in my head to life. It was a way of self-expression and a means to create anything I could imagine.

I didn’t love Blender, but I loved creating things—turning the intangible into the tangible. I decided to do something I didn’t love consistently every day for a few years.

The Journey to Mastery

Fast forward five years. Now, I use Blender for 30%-40% of my work. I get paid to use this software and create entire worlds that bring a brand or artist’s vision to life in 3D space. I work from home and have become quite efficient with my workflow, churning out fully fleshed ideas in only a few days.

In my free time, I create passion projects that allow me to explore my ideas creatively using this software. I’ve built up the skills to create whatever I want. After five years, I fell in love with creating 3D environments.

If I had taken the advice of “doing what you love,” I would not have pursued a career in 3D animation because I didn’t love it initially. Over time, as I improved, I grew to love it. That love was not innate but developed through struggle and persistence.

The Hidden Value of Struggle

The love for something often starts with struggle. It’s the journey, the process itself that is fulfilling, not just the end result. It’s like turning 25 and being told you have access to a trust fund that will set you up for life. It seems like a sweet deal at the start, but after buying everything you’ve ever wanted, you’d feel empty, purposeless, and unfulfilled.

The end result is sweeter when you’ve put all your time, attention, and energy into achieving it.

And I’ve found from personal experience that you can fall in love with the struggle. The ups and downs, the unpredictability, the progression year after year. That is what you will grow to love, but it is rarely realized at the start.

Refined Advice for the Aspiring

If I had to restate the advice of “do what you love,” I’d rephrase it to:

“Try as many things as you can. Explore both things that interest you and things that don’t. Allow the journey of exploration to refine your understanding of what you like and don’t like. Stay the course long enough until you are certain of what you do like. Then, find out what you need to do to sustain the life you want to live. Would you be happy spending eight hours a day doing that thing? Be willing to explore as many options as possible and then focus your efforts on becoming the best at a couple of those options. The rest will fall into place. The money will come.”

Do not shy away from what is hard or seemingly uninteresting at first glance. Allow yourself to explore the depth and complexity of a variety of different paths. It is through the struggle where true love is found. There are levels to this.

-P