Passion projects and why everyone should pursue them

Dec 2, 2023

The new internet culture, heralded by Tiktok and LinkedIn (who I’ve heard is now seen as cesspool with all these self-proclaimed Chat GPT-3 experts), has presented an increasing amount of individuals quitting their full time job to pursue their passion. Inspirational would be an understatement. However, the more I speak to my peers, the more I realise that a lot of this inspiration can sometimes be muddled with naive romanticism.

To discredit the courageous decisions these individuals would be foolish of me. While a lot of these dreams that are being fulfilled is something we all aspire to - the relentless pursuit to be our true self to the world; the reality is that

No, I’m not being pessimistic. No, I’m not trying to limit anyone’s else dreams. By all means, go chase your passions. Or even better, create your passions. But what should not be forgotten is that it does not have to be the “be end and end all”. Your passions don’t have to grow into a million dollar empire. Your passion does not need your life’s entire commitment to it. It is okay for your passion to just be a side project.

I understand that in life, we must put all our eggs in one basket - to really commit ourself to the one thing truly matters. But what’s often forgotten is that being practical about it can mean foregoing this passion for other important things in life.

Take it from me. Having been been exposed to a lot of entrepreneurs who in their own right have built amazing businesses and/or lead teams to high growth; I have been inspired to build something of my own.

After all, you are a product of your environment. Those you give your attention to, you will slowly become.

And so, in the midst of it all, I became so attached to the world of indie hackers and startup founding alike that I became unhealthily obsessed with wanting to create something and make it into my full time thing.

That is until I came across a Jay Shetty podcast episode featuring Neha Kumar; who spoke about making our passions practical. There were very evocative comments regarding the importance of choosing and really understanding to the core - what do we want as a passion and what do we want as a business. A lot of the time people are unsure of what they want and find themselves rushing into making it a full-time thing; only for it to cease operations due to change in interests.

They fail to be perennial.

I cannot agree more with this. Not every passion has to be turned into a business. But yet we feel the pressure to do so because of this new Tiktok era that’s deemed us any less if we don’t quit our job and turn our passions and dreams into a business.

I used to quite prophetic when I was younger, thinking that your work HAS TO be your passion; and if its anything less, then you’re doing life wrong. But now in hindsight, that perspective cannot be any more flawed. I think a fair measurement of whether you’re working on the right thing is how well the job is aligned to your values.

A great read by Julian Shapiro on this topic: https://www.julian.com/blog/life-planning


Currently, I am working at an exciting early stage startup and that’s enough for me to align myself with my core operating principles:

  • Curiosity

  • Ownership

  • Problem solving

  • Creativity

  • Pioneering something new

And to me, that is foundational and enough.

Surrounded by so many entrepreneurial individuals and creatives, I used to be insecure about myself. Feeling like I was all talk and no action; all because I had no entity that was generating money. Sure, I’m no solopreneur who gets to live permissionless. Nor am I a wealthy young man making some crazy internet money.

I am neither.

But I am someone who has still managed to create some time for myself to take photos on the side and write pieces just like this one. Essentially, do things that make me feel alive and not be worried about not having a “business”.

And that to me, is okay. Casey Naistat and Ryan Holiday (two individuals I admire for pioneering Youtube creativity and Stoicism respectively) had a conversation where they spoke about the importance of remembering why you started something and to ensure that whatever decision you make, optimises for that reason. That reason must first and foremost be grounded in your values. For e.g. I value photography and the art of capturing beautiful moments in the stillness; therefore every decision and commitment I make; must honour that initial motive. Anything opposed, like for example, chasing high-ticket freelance jobs will go against that.

Is that limiting to your growth? Maybe. But the premise is that whatever you do, optimise for what you value most.

It goes back to Greg McKeweon’s framework:

Essentialism & The Financial Advisor Paradox Of Success | Financial  advisors, Knowledge quotes, Positive encouragement


At the moment, I am content with developing my craft in photography and writing; in addition to learning the ins and outs of an early stage startup (with the hope of taking it to a Series B+ company). There’s so much left for me to learn and I’m completely fine for it to be my passion project for five specific reasons.

Exercising curiosity

Opposed to running a business that is very high risk, starting a passion project is not so much the case. With startups, you are obliged to serve your customers and find PMF etc. These are, in my opinion, more limiting than that in passion projects, because you dont have the liberty to explore and go on tangents because at the end of the day, your product still needs to fulfil that PMF.

On the other hand, passion projects allow you to explore and expand your horizons. Though it is important to eventually double down on one thing, the liberty of passion projects is that you sometimes unravel new ideas you might never have thought of had you not had the freedom to explore and experiment.

A sense of ownership

Thanks to the help of many no-code tools and even now AI, passion projects allow you to operate solo. This means that theres a higher chance for you to have complete ownership of that project. For me, it sometimes feels like in an ego-driven motive, but a complete ownership means that whatever I am expressing to world is mine and mine only.

“Self-expression is as vital to our survival as food or shelter. We must be able to share the stories of our lives—from the small moments of what happened today at school to our grandest theories of what life is about.” - Tiago Forte

Execution over perfection

Passion projects nonetheless still resembles some important operating principles that would also be required in running a business. In particular, the need to execute. Rather than seeking perfection and falling in the trap of over planning, passion projects still have its own stakes in the sense that executing on ideas are imperative because failure to do so will result in a loss of momentum or someone else shipping that same idea to the world first.

Can’t lose if you don’t choose? Of course you can. You lose the moment. You lose the momentum. You lose your ability to look yourself in the mirror. - Ryan Holiday

A way to create my passions

Passion projects, when tangible, allows us to practise and master our craft. Since the stakes are not as high, I think passions projects provide you with an environment to learn and experiment. Knowing that there’s not a need to make money, you become more accepting of making mistakes, of stumbling along the ways.

The magic of the creative process is that there is no magic.” - Seth Godin


Fractal patterns of life

This idea is a little more abstract but I first heard this idea from Tiago Forte on a Modern Wisdom podcast episode. The premise of this ideas was that things may not seem to work out right now but the residual value will return later down the future. In a similar vein, should a passion project should exist, it’s not a total failure. The learnings you get whether in creative shipping or developing technical skills to build that craft will somehow in the future serve you.

As a final note, I want anyone who reads to understand that it is totally fine to not have a business. Passion projects are still a great way to liberate your soul and find your purpose.

It’s important to not feel pressured to what we see on social media because as we all know, a lot of what we see is smoke and mirrors, filtered to only highlights. More importantly, we should not let what we see blur our values and ultimately goals. Silencing the white noise, we must be more discerning with what we want and be convicted with the decisions we make.

“Don't inherit goals without sanity checking them. Don't outsource them to society. By default, society prioritises vanity metrics because even the lazy can achieve them.” - Julian Shapiro

— Julian Shapiro

Let's work together

© dtmtran

Let's work together

© dtmtran

Let's work together

© dtmtran