Passion: Definition, Examples, & Projects​

By Charlie Huntington, M.A., Ph.D. Candidate
​Reviewed by Tchiki Davis, M.A., Ph.D.
Passion is a strong liking for or interest in something. Read on to learn about how our passions define us and motivate us to move through the world.​
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After graduating from college, I spent nine months working at a university in Cairo, Egypt. One night, I was sitting on a party boat that floated gently along the Nile River. During a pause in the conversation, a good friend and coworker remarked on how, whenever he and I talked, I was mostly interested in the interpersonal dynamics around us, and all the books I wanted to talk about were about close relationships. Had I ever considered becoming a psychologist or a therapist?​
If ever there was a lightbulb moment in my life, that was probably it. There is a thread running through my life of being fascinated with close relationships, especially romantic relationships. Likewise, I have always been oriented to caring for others (something I could have recognized when my cabinmates at summer camp voted me “Cabin Mom” at age 15). In that moment, my friend had put a label on my passion—for the first time, I could put words around what really mattered to me. That passion has motivated and sustained me professionally and personally ever since; over a decade later, I get to perform psychological research on relationships, and I relish being a supportive presence for my therapist clients, my housemates, my friends, and my family.

In this article, I will look at the origins and nature of passion. Psychology research has much to tell us about how passion works.​
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What Is Passion? (A Definition)​

Passions are strong preferences, likings, or interests in activities, objects, or ideas (Vallerand, 2010). Importantly, passions usually have a strong emotional component. If you are interested in something but do not feel strongly about it, whether good or bad, then you are probably not passionate about it. This emotional relationship with the object of our passions demonstrates how important we consider it to be (Vallerand, 2010).

One of the most studied varieties of passion is passionate love, or the strong desire to be as close to, or united with, another person as possible (Hatfield et al., 2012). The behaviors that we associate with being passionately in love, such as thinking regularly about the other person, wanting to do things with them, desiring physical or sexual intimacy, and putting the relationship above other priorities, are pretty good examples of passion in action.

I can see these patterns in my own decision making. In choosing a PhD program and working to become a therapist, I prioritized my passion for connecting with and caring for people over other objectives, such as making more money or having a job without the potential stress of so much human interaction. In spending some of my spare time reading about psychological topics, I am choosing not to develop other skills or interests. I do these things because they align with my passion, because I am more fulfilled—if not always happier—for having made these decisions.​

Opposite of Passion​

The opposite of passion is disinterest or apathy. A person who is apathetic toward something has no strong feelings about it and is not very interested in it. For example, although I live in a state with more microbreweries than any other, I nevertheless find myself completely apathetic toward beer. Despite all the people around me who love to discuss the varieties and subtleties of craft beers, I simply do not know how to care about this topic—it is just not a passion that I have.

Why Is Passion Important?

Passion is essential to our sense of self-fulfillment and personal meaning; it is a central element in achieving self actualization, which is the most advanced need on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Mouton & Montijo, 2017). Passion makes it easier to sustain effort, because it is easier to keep working at something if it engages you and matters to you. Given how challenging graduate school can be and how difficult it is to become an effective therapist, it is hard for me to imagine having completed all this training without the passion I have for therapy and for psychology research. Knowing that doing this work fulfills this passion in me is what keeps me going.
 
People with more passion in their lives tend to have better mental and physical well-being as well (Vallerand, 2010). Depending on the type of passion we are talking about—more on that in a moment—passion is also associated with feeling good, being in a flow state, and feeling more alive (Curran et al., 2015).

Causes of Passion

Where does passion come from? Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000) tells us that human beings have basic psychological needs for autonomy (taking personal initiative and moving toward things they want), competence (feeling effective in pursuing goals and interacting with the world), and relatedness (feeling connected to other people). We achieve self-determination by interacting with our environments to achieve these goals. Over time, we come to care about the activities that we find the most fulfilling, and thus a passion is born (Vallerand et al., 2003).
 
In this way, a passion becomes a part of who we are—a part of our sense of self (Vallerand et al., 2003). For example, I have gradually realized that my latest passion, rock climbing, has gradually become integrated into my self-concept. Rock climbing has gone from something I do to something associated with my identity. More and more, I think of myself as a climber. And the more we identify with the activity, the more time and energy we will invest into it (Vallerand et al., 2003). In this way, passions can become self-reinforcing over time.
 
Importantly, this process may happen in a very conscious way or without our realizing it and choosing it. In this way, people develop both harmonious passions and obsessive passions (Vallerand et al., 2003). Harmonious passions are chosen freely and embraced; we do not experience any pressure to identify with the activity or engage in it. We do it because it is satisfying and because we can. By contrast, obsessive passions tend to develop because we feel some need to pursue the passion; there is a “have to” element to the passion.

Examples of Passion

I have seen both obsessive and harmonious passion in the rock climbers I have met.

Obsessive Passion

The obsessive passion drives people to keep pushing themselves, to climb even when their bodies are tired or hurting. I think I see obsessive passion in the person who tries the same incredibly difficult route again and again and then has a meltdown when they cannot complete it. I worry that a person like this has overidentified with their passion, that they feel a compulsive need to get better at it, that they are not freely choosing to climb but trying to make themselves feel ‘good enough’ by climbing.

Harmonious Passion

On the other hand, the people with harmonious passion for climbing seem to make intentional decisions to climb in the ways that are most satisfying for them. If they are injured, they take time off. They often seem more interested in reaching a flow state and deriving pleasure from the activity itself than in achieving a goal or satisfying a vision they have of “who they are.”
 
Let’s take a more in-depth look at examples of how these passions might develop. Imagine two young children facing off in the final round of the state spelling bee. For many months, both of them have pored over dictionaries, practiced with flashcards, and persevered through other competitions. For one child, this is driven by harmonious passion: They are an avid reader, have a genuine interest in how language works, and derive satisfaction from learning the rules of spelling. The other child is driven by obsessive passion: In their busy and high-achieving household, success at spelling has become the primary way to get attention from their parents. It feels to the child like parental love is dependent on their increasing mastery of spelling.

Which child goes on to win the spelling bee is not important here. The point is that the two kids reached the same destination thanks to different types of passion. While both obsessive and harmonious passion can fuel huge accomplishments, they can be pretty different psychological experiences.

Passion vs. Love​

According to a famous relationships researcher, passion can be understood as a critical component of, but not the sole factor in, romantic love (Sternberg, 1986). In this model, passion, along with intimacy and commitment, goes into the equation of determining how strong a love bond is between two people.

Passion motivates lovers to be close, to make grand gestures, and to show affection. But without a sense of overall companionship and a desire to stay connected, passionate love is just infatuation, and that love may not last. That said, passionate love is associated with overall levels of romantic relationship satisfaction (Sprecher & Regan, 1998).

Tips on Finding Your Passion

Some research suggests that it is harmonious passion, not obsessive passion, that drives the association between having passion in your life and having greater well-being (Philippe et al., 2009). Can knowing all about harmonious versus obsessive passion help you find your own passion? I think it can. 

People who experience harmonious passion are more likely to experience positive emotions and get into what is called a flow state (Vallerand et al., 2003). So this leads us to a few questions: What makes you happy? What activities do you lose yourself in? What can so absorb your attention that you won’t notice the time passing? What activities or topics reliably make you feel better? In answering these questions, you might identify passions that hadn’t quite stood out to you yet.
 
Here's another tip for finding your passions: Identify your values first. People who take actions that align with their personal values seem to do so with passion, and one study found that this passion may be even more sustainable than passion that is driven by feelings (Jachimowicz et al., 2017). Simply listing out your values and considering how you can act in accordance with those values may give you insight into where your passions lie.
 
If you would like help figuring out what your passions are and how to incorporate them into your life, I recommend watching this video:

Video: How to Find Your Passion and Make It Your Job

List of Passion Projects

Having projects in our lives that we are passionate about can keep us engaged at work and reduce burnout and stress (Shanafelt et al., 2009). It can also boost creativity and innovation: Google’s one-time policy of giving its engineers freedom to use a small portion of their work week on their own creative projects led to the creation of Gmail, among other tools (Schmidt & Rosenberg, 2014).
 
To start a passion project, I suggest that, in accordance with the models developed by schoolteachers, you reserve some time each day or each week for the project (Katrein, 2016). To ensure that you stick with it, pick something that you know you will find rewarding and motivating (Rush, 2015), but also make sure to protect your passion project time. When it comes to actual project ideas, here are a few that come to mind:
 
  • Volunteer. If you are not sure where to start, try joining an organization with a cause you value or with responsibilities that sound exciting. Inspiration may come from getting your hands dirty.
  • Create something. It could be an art project, a piece of furniture, or even an event like a neighborhood block party.
  • Start an organization. If there is an unmet need in your community, it might be a reflection of your values to take action and address it.
  • Help raise money for a cause. Sometimes just getting on board with somebody else’s passion project or worthy cause can scratch the itch and get us in touch with our own passion.
  • Set a personal health-related goal. I recommend setting goals that do not have specific numbers, such as a weight, attached to them, but that instead reflect your values and what makes you feel good. “Learning to swing dance” might be a better goal than “finish a half-marathon in a set amount of time” or “get fit enough to see my stomach muscles.”

Quotes on Passion

  • “Passion will always move you in the direction of your authentic self.” — Danielle LaPorte
  • “Living passionately is the opposite of living passively.” — Marty Cauley
  • “Passion serves its purpose to help give a person motivation to learn the necessary skills and overcome the hardships they’re going to face.” ― Derek C. Doepker
  • “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” — Albert Einstein
  • “Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.” — Martha Graham

Articles Related to Passion

​Want to learn more? Check out these articles:

Books Related to Passion

If you’d like to keep learning more, here are a few books that you might be interested in.

Final Thoughts on Passion​

I wish you all the best in finding and living out your harmonious passions. Bringing more passion into our lives makes them more fulfilling and meaningful, and that makes us healthier and happier people.​

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