How’s your passion—your energy—for your work or mission these days?
The longer you’re in leadership, the more aware you become of what really fuels passion over the long haul.
And it’s a natural thing for passion to fade over time.
I’ve been serving the same people for 19 years.
The question that I’ve revisited again and again is: How do you stay passionate over a long period of time?
Because when your passion fades as a leader, so does the passion of the people around you.
How do you keep your passion strong without faking it?
7 Passion Substitutes that Never Really Last
Some things fuel passion in the short term, but they don’t last.
The first two on this list will give you legitimate passion in the short term, but they won’t last. The other 5 are pale substitutes for the real thing.
1. Firsts
When you’re a young leader, doing something for the first time can generate passion. Your first team, first successes, first failures, first learnings, first accomplishments—all of these will give you a boost and a thrill. But the problem is that the longer you stay, the fewer firsts there are. Then what do you do?
2. New things
Every time you start something new you get passionate. That’s why some leaders love change. Sometimes leaders love change too much. Sometimes we change not because the organization needs change, but because they got bored. I love change and think change is necessary, but starting new things because you’re bored is not great leadership.
3. Caffeine
If you haven’t got much deep down passion, caffeine is a cheap substitute. Whether it’s Red Bull, Starbucks or some monster energy, running on caffeine will eventually land you more burnt and empty than you think.
4. Overscheduling
If you aren’t excited about anything big (no big challenge on the radar), one temptation is to fill life up with too many little things. So you overbook, overwork and over commit hoping to rekindle some energy and momentum.
5. Hype
Feeling a lack of passion deep down, you might try to convince yourself and everyone else that what you’re doing is the BEST THING EVER, even when you’re not sure it is. Hype always over-promises and under-delivers. And when you over-hype things, you lose the ability to celebrate the real victories that come along.
6. Time off
If you’re not engaged deep down, you will sometimes just wander away, spending less and less time engaging in what you’ve been called to do.
And instead of refueling you, your time away simply makes you not want to go back. Time off can’t rekindle a passion that isn’t there otherwise.
7. Finding a new side passion
If you’re not passionate about the main thing, you’ll find something else to be passionate about – whether that’s building the biggest deck in history in your backyard or starting a new ministry on the side.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t have a hobby (this blog is mine), but if you don’t have passion in your main calling, your side thing will become the main thing.
All of it’s sad, because you’re not really doing the thing God called you to do.
Because you don’t have the passion for it anymore. And the things that you hoped might fuel passion aren’t really doing it.
So What Does Fuel Passion?
So what does fuel your passion?
There are two things that have fueled mine again and again.
1. A white hot mission that is bigger than you
If you are really serving a great cause (in my case the mission of the local church) that is bigger than just you, coming back to that again and again will refuel you. At least it does for me.
The more I focus on the mission in front of us, the more my passion renews.
2. A heart that is fully alive
Over time, a leader’s heart can grow weary, tired and even cynical.
How do you overcome that? Keep you heart fully alive. This is perhaps the biggest challenge there is in self-leadership.
This post outlines 10 habits of leaders who guard their hearts and keep their hearts fully alive.
