A Practical Path to Doing What You Love | Generated by AI
How to Do Things One Loves (in reality, not in fairy tales)
Most people never fully “do what they love” as their main life/activity, but many get remarkably close. Here’s the practical path that actually works:
- Find the intersection, not the perfect passion
Stop waiting for a single burning passion. Instead look for the overlap of:- What you’re decent-to-good at (or could become good at with practice)
- What you enjoy more than average (even if only mildly)
- What someone will pay you for / what the world needs doing in the world
This is called the “Ikigai” framework or “useful passion.” Almost nobody loves 100 % of their dream job, but if you love 60–70 % and tolerate the rest, you’re already in the top 5 % of humanity.
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Start tiny and iterate (the “love follows competence” rule)
People think: “I’ll do it only when I love it.”
Reality is usually the opposite: you start doing it (badly), you get a little better, you get small wins and feedback, and only then love grows.
Example: almost no famous writer loved writing at the beginning; they loved having written and the identity of “writer.” - Reduce the financial risk aggressively
The #1 killer of doing what you love is needing money tomorrow.
Practical moves:- Keep a part-time job or freelance gig for 1–3 years while you build the loved thing on the side.
- Live on half your income and save/invest the other half (classic “barista with a dream” model, but intentional).
- Move to a lower cost-of-living area or country for 1–5 years (huge leverage).
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Build an audience or customer base before quitting the day job
Musicians, artists, YouTubers, writers, coaches who “do what they love” almost always spent years giving away value for free or cheap until demand appeared. - Accept seasons
Sometimes you do 80 % what you love and 20 % what pays.
Sometimes it flips for a while. People who sustain long-term freedom treat it like a 10–20-year game, not a “quit on Monday” decision.
Why Only Some People Can Do Things They Love
Because it requires a combination of rare ingredients:
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Financial runway or low expenses
Someone earning $80k in San Francisco with $60k in expenses can’t take risks. Someone earning $40k in Thailand with $15k expenses can. -
High pain tolerance + delayed gratification
The first 2–7 years usually pay less (often nothing) and you get constant rejection. -
Skill that is scarce + marketable
Loving to play video games 12 hours a day ≠ someone will pay you. Loving to speed-run games while entertaining 100k live viewers = millions. -
Self-belief that survives 1,000 small failures
Most people quit when the initial excitement wears off and it becomes work. -
Luck / timing / network
Being in the right city, meeting the right person, or catching a trend early still matters a lot.
Which Kind of People Actually End Up Doing What They Love?
From observing hundreds of cases (artists, entrepreneurs, athletes, creators):
- Obsessives who can’t not do the thing even when no one pays or claps.
- Frugal high-earners who saved a 2–5 year runway before jumping.
- Generalists who combine skills (e.g., good at coding + good at explaining = high-paid teacher on YouTube).
- Immigrants or people from modest backgrounds — they often have lower expectations and higher grit (counter-intuitive but statistically common).
- People with supportive partners or no dependents (at least in the early years).
- Late bloomers — many who “do what they love” only figured it out in their 30s–50s after trying “safe” careers first.
Brutal summary
“Do what you love” is marketed as a personality trait (“find your passion!”), but it’s mostly an economic and behavioral strategy.
The people who actually live it are usually:
→ Slightly obsessed
→ Financially disciplined
→ Willing to be bad for years
→ Ruthless about cutting expenses and distractions
If you optimize for those four things, the probability you love doing has a scary-high chance of becoming what you get paid for — or at least what fills most of your life.
The rest is just romantic storytelling.