When Self-Care Isn’t Enough
Why Finding Passion — Not Just Slowing Down — Can Pull You Out of a Rut
“The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times... The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.” — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Recently, I was getting a haircut with a new stylist. In an attempt to avoid the standard small talk, I answered, “I study passion,” when she asked me what I did.
Knowing she’d have no idea what I was talking about, I added, “You know that feeling when life just feels kind of… flat?”
Her scissors paused in mid-air. “Yes,” she said. “That’s exactly how I’ve been feeling. I didn’t have a name for it before, but… everything just feels kind of dull lately. I didn’t used to be this way.”
“Passion is essentially the opposite of that,” I told her. “It’s when you’re excited to get out of bed, and you can’t help but think about the thing you love — even if it leaves you tired. It’s a good kind of tired.”
“I haven’t felt that in forever,” she said, her voice dropping.
She went on to tell me she’d been so tired the past few years, and everyone told her to rest more, take bubble baths, unplug, cut back on work. She tried it all, but… “It didn’t help,” she said. “If anything, I just felt worse.”
I wasn’t surprised. In fact, I hear this all the time — from Uber drivers, clients, friends. Most people can’t name it, maybe even feel a little weird or ashamed talking about it at first. But nearly everyone has felt it: the absence of a fire inside. A kind of flatness that drains the color from life.
Sociologist Corey Keyes, who coined the term, describes it as the neglected middle ground between depression and flourishing. You’re not miserable, but you’re not alive either — you’re just… drifting.
Here’s the thing: So much of social media and self-help tells us that when we’re tired, we need to do less. Rest more. Cut things out. But what if the opposite is true? What if you don’t need to slow down — but throw yourself, headfirst, into something that wakes you up?
There’s plenty of research to back this up. Psychologist Robert Vallerand’s work on passion shows that meaning and energy don’t just come from subtracting stress. They come from adding meaningful engagement — even in small, manageable doses. The answer isn’t to overhaul your whole life or find your one true calling. It’s about making room for something — anything — that sparks curiosity or brings a little joy. Maybe it’s keeping a few succulents alive, learning to salsa dance, or writing the first page of that novel you’ve imagined for years.
What matters isn’t the scale or the outcome, but the simple act of engaging — giving yourself permission to follow a hunch and see where it leads.
This isn’t just a theory. The first time I really understood it, I was drifting… or maybe more like in a free fall. I knew something had to change. So I followed a hunch — a curiosity — that just maybe, taking up a hobby (can we please reclaim this word?!) would help bring back some color to my days. I took up jiu-jitsu.
Soon, I was training three times a day, my days structured like that of a professional athlete. I’d never been so exhausted. I’d also never felt so alive.
(I realize I’m a bit extreme — not everyone decides to become a semi-pro athlete overnight.)
Maybe you’ve felt this, too, in your own way. Maybe you’ve signed up for a race, planned a big trip, or took on a new project — anything from a house remodel to planning a wedding to learning to play the guitar.
And sure, these pursuits are demanding. You end each day spent, maybe even exhausted — but it’s a good kind of tired. The fatigue is earned. You’re tired, but you’re awake.
Why does this happen? Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi spent his life studying people at their best — artists, athletes, entrepreneurs, surgeons. He found a paradox: the activities that demand the most, that require deep concentration and skill, are the ones that leave us feeling more energized, not less. He called this flow: when challenge meets skill, time disappears, and you become completely absorbed in what you’re doing.
And here’s where passion comes in. The more you care about an activity — whether it’s training, learning, building, or creating — the more likely you are to enter this flow state). And the more you experience flow, the more passionate you become.
Passion and flow fuel each other. Research shows that when people engage regularly in activities they care about, it leads to more energy, greater well-being, and a sense of meaning — even if those activities are challenging.
In other words: passion isn’t just about “doing what you love.” It’s about doing something deeply enough that you get lost in it — and come out the other side feeling more like yourself.
Of course, sometimes you are doing too much. I have a friend who routinely has 80–100 items on her daily to-do list. That, I would say (as would my favorite modern-day philosopher, Oliver Burkeman), is just not accepting the limits of being human. If your daily to-do list items surpass the actual hours in the day, something has to give.
For most people I meet, the problem isn’t over-commitment. It’s under-engagement. If you’re simply getting through your days, but nothing is pulling you forward, my advice — based on all the research and all the interviews I’ve done with some of the world’s most passionate people — wouldn’t be to start by cutting something out. It would be to add something in.
But What If You Don’t Know What You’re Passionate About?
This is one of the most common things I hear (including from my hair stylist): “I don’t actually know what I’m passionate about.”
If that’s you, you’re not alone. It’s often the result of a lifetime spent doing what you “should” do instead of following your heart (speaking from experience). Or maybe you’re just in between passions — that’s normal too. Whatever the reason, it can feel almost like identity failure, like something is deeply wrong with you.
But it’s not. It just means you probably haven’t given yourself the chance to really explore.
Research shows that “openness to experience” is one of the key traits that leads people to find a passion. (It also happens to be one of the core traits of lucky people — if we’re open to life, life can throw more at you.) If you’re not open to what could be, you’re shutting down possibility. And that is the number one way to stay stuck in a rut.
So if you’re feeling stuck, here’s a mini checklist to get started:
Mini Passion Discovery Checklist
If you’re not sure what you’re passionate about, start as small as possible. Use these prompts to spark a new experiment:
1. What did you love as a kid?
What activities made you lose track of time?
2. What do you find yourself Googling or daydreaming about lately?
Follow your curiosity — even if it seems random or “impractical.”
3. Do you crave more solo time, or want to connect with others?
Pick one experiment that fits:
– Solo: write morning pages, pick up a book on something you’ve always wondered about, try a new recipe.
– Social: sign up for a class, join a local club (make sure it’s around a topic you’re interested in), try a group workout.
4. What’s one thing you’ve always wanted to try, but never have?
List 2–3 ideas, and circle the one that feels easiest to start.
Pick one thing from your answers — no matter how small — and commit to trying it this week. Don’t wait for a lightning bolt; just take a step. If you want a deeper dive, here’s my full Passion Discovery Checklist to get you started.
Passion isn’t something you have to wait for. It’s something you build, one small experiment at a time. Pick something — even the tiniest spark — and see what happens when you give yourself permission to begin.
That’s how you bring color back to your life.
I’d love to hear what you discover. If you try the checklist, let me know what comes up — surprises, wins, dead-ends, or new sparks.
Love this. Also “in an attempt to avoid small talk” 😂