To put it in very simple terms: passion gives you the impression that you'll succeed, that you'll make it, that you'll overcome any obstacle that comes your way just because you really want to do / get that thing.
That, in theory, should be great. This idea is being promoted again and again nowadays by so many people. If you have passion, they claim, you'll succeed. If you really want to, you'll get it.
It might happen. Or, you might have to deal with so many problems, while being completely unprepared for them, thinking that passion alone will keep you motivated to work, that you'll soon be overwhelmed, frustrated, miserable, and ready to quit.
I've seen this happen many times. It also happened to me. I wasn't ready for it. I was living in my own little fantasy - if I am passionate about what I do, I'll succeed. I'll get money, and I'll help myself, and my parents, and live a good life. Only if I'm passionate enough. So, when life decided to teach me a lesson, it caught me off-guard.
I had no money, and passion alone wasn't gonna get me any. My parents had a lot of debts, and passion alone wasn't gonna help them pay them. I wasn't seeing any growth in my work, and passion didn't help. So what was I supposed to do? I've been told that passion alone was enough, that hard work was gonna pay off, but it didn't work.
I ended up quitting and chose to be a responsible adult, to get a 9 to 5 job that I disliked, to work with and for people I disliked, all in order to be able to just live. It was unfair, or so I thought. I quit, found another job, and I'm back at it again, only this time for more money and for people I hate even more.
Passion can create the illusion of entitlement. It can give you the impression that just because you want it hard enough, and just because you put in some kind of effort, you'll get what you want. It doesn't work like that. It never did, unless the person in question was really lucky.
Living can be hard, and just wanting something doesn't mean much. You must work for it, but you must be smart about what you do. You must do the work that needs to be done, because the work that you want to do might not be what's gonna get you to your goal. You must change yourself, so that you can act according to whatever situation you happen to be in. You must always learn. Above all, you must always prepare yourself for failure, because you will fail.
Failure is glorified nowadays, being put as the magic ingredient for success. If you fail long enough, you'll succeed. But not a lot of people talk about how failure can influence your life, and what failure can do to people.
If you have a good life, if you're financially stable, if you're healthy and with no debt, then failing isn't that big of a deal. You might have enough money to afford failing for years without sacrificing anything. You might be healthy enough to have all the time in the world. Maybe there's no bank taking half of your paycheck because you desperately needed money a few years ago. In those type of situations, failure is something you can afford.
But for someone who lacks money and really needs it, who isn't healthy and requires medicine, who has debt that needs to be paid, failure isn't really an option. Any little bit of failure can have huge consequences. Fail enough times, and your life becomes a ruin.
This is why you must not rely on passion. Passion is good, but planning ahead of time, working smart, and being ready for failure, is important. If you fail, you need to make sure that your overall life will not suffer, that you won't lose money, that you won't lose your only source of income, that you won't become so sick that you won't be able to work any more, and so on.
In order to do that, you must learn to save money, to take care of your life, to avoid debt and to pay it if you have any, and so on. Failing might be inevitable, but failing to prepare for failure is just stupid, yet promoted today as the path towards success.
Passion creates the illusion of entitlement, and that might make you think that failing has no consequences. And when you will fail often enough, you might realize that your life has been getting worse and worse, without you doing anything about it.
How to solve this? Accept the reality of things - you're not special. Life will not be kind to you just because you want it to. You must accept how things are, and prepare for them accordingly. You must learn to live a modest life, devoid of stupid expenses. You must learn to build good habits and routines that will make work easy. You must learn to take care of yourself. You must learn a skill, a craft, something that will help you make money. You must learn to respect yourself. The list can go on.
Learning those things, getting your life in order, and preparing yourself for the worst at all times, might allow you to afford to fail a few times, with no consequences. If you fail, nothing might change. If you succeed, your life will become better. But for that to happen, you must learn how to prepare for failure.
The idea of failing often can have benefits, but not when each failure ruins your life bit by bit. Get everything you can in order, be prepared, plan for the future, and understand that failure, at times, is a commodity, not a necessity.