You look at success and think it’s passion. You see someone doing what they’re brilliant at and assume they must have always loved it. They’re driven, inspired, maybe even blessed.
But more often than not, it’s not passion at all. It’s not love at first sight. It’s repetition. Boring, brutal, relentless repetition.
Real dancers don’t wake up excited every day. Painters don’t find inspiration on tap. Top-level athletes don’t train with a smile plastered on their face. They do the work, day in, day out, often bored out of their skulls. That’s what makes them good.
And yet, we rarely talk about that part.
We see the final product, a routine, a painting, a match, a business success, and we assume it’s all been a steady upward climb. But anyone who’s lived it knows it’s not. It’s hours and hours of feeling like a fraud. Repeating something a thousand times. Getting it wrong 999 of those.
We Want the Highlight, Not the Hard Light
Social media’s made this worse. We get 30-second highlight reels of dancers performing routines that took 8 months to get right. Painters spend 120 hours on a canvas and get 48 likes. A copywriter bleeds over one sentence for two days and someone calls it “lucky creativity.”
We’re addicted to results and allergic to process.
Take advertising. Back in the heyday of Saatchi & Saatchi, when Paul Arden was shaping iconic campaigns, the magic wasn’t in a sudden flash of brilliance. It was in grinding ideas down to their essence. Sitting in smoke-filled rooms, ripping ideas apart, rewriting, redrawing, rethinking.
People forget that the line “The car in front is a Toyota” didn’t come out of nowhere. Nor did “Silk Cut” or “Labour Isn’t Working.” They came from rejection after rejection, tweaks, edits, debates. Hundreds of hours for five words.
Real creative work isn’t glamorous. It’s lonely. It’s full of self-doubt. You write the same line fifty different ways and still hate all of them. And if you’re lucky, the next morning, one might just work.
Passion is Overrated. Repetition Isn’t.
We love the word “passion” because it makes people feel like success should be easy. If you just love it enough, you’ll be great. But passion doesn’t get you out of bed on the dark mornings. Discipline does. Structure does. Knowing you said you would.
Musicians don’t become world-class by strumming casually when the mood hits. They become great by practising the same scale over and over until it’s reflex. Dancers repeat the same step hundreds of times until it burns into their body. Writers rewrite sentences. Wrestlers drill takedowns. Sprinters practise the same start for years to improve by 0.1 of a second.
What people call “passion” is usually a deep familiarity with repetition. It’s not that they love the grind. It’s that they’ve become the grind.
Dancers vs TikTok
Look at real dancers. Ballet dancers. Contemporary. Breakers. The ones who’ve studied movement, rhythm, line, and expression for a decade before they ever touched a stage.
Now look at TikTok.
You’ll see someone filming a dance challenge with 10 million views. Maybe it’s fun, maybe it’s catchy. But don’t confuse popularity with craft. That’s like comparing karaoke to opera.
A real dancer will train their body for twenty years to make one gesture look effortless. That’s not passion. That’s dedication to tedium. That’s self-respect for the craft. And yes, it’s usually thankless.
They deal with injuries. With rejection. With people asking, “What’s your real job?”
But they persist. Not because it’s easy. But because the process has made them who they are.
Artists, Alone in Their Studios
Painters aren’t just dabbling with brushes in a rush of inspiration. They’re staring at a canvas, battling with composition, layering, colour theory. Starting again. Failing quietly. Getting it wrong.
We see a final piece in a gallery or on Instagram and forget the number of hours spent alone. The sketches, the abandoned canvases, the mental gymnastics it takes to pull an idea out of the soul and make it work visually.
And they’ll often post that final piece, and it gets no traction. Why? Because we’ve lost the attention span to value real work. Everyone wants “How I made this in 3 hours” instead of “This took me 3 years.”
There are painters out there who have never gone viral. But their hands know what they’re doing. They’ve done the miles.
Athletes Who Know Boredom
Let’s talk about boredom and brilliance.
A marathon runner doesn’t get excited for every long run. They put the miles in because they’ve committed to the outcome. It’s the same route, same pace, same inner war. And they do it again the next day.
A wrestler like Dan Gable doesn’t just rely on talent. His philosophy was simple: “Repetition. Repetition. Repetition.” It wasn’t cute. It wasn’t glamorous. It worked.
A judoka spends years perfecting a pivot. Just one move. Not a full throw. Just the pivot. So in competition, it’s unconscious.
Success, in sport or anywhere else, is often found at the end of the most boring drill you’ve done a thousand times too many.
When It’s Quiet, Keep Going
There are days I feel like a fraud. Like I’ve not earned my place. Despite helping people. Despite seeing lives change. Despite thousands of hours coaching and teaching. I still get that voice in my head whispering, “Who are you to speak?”
But I know enough now to recognise that voice for what it is. Imposter syndrome doesn’t mean you’re not good enough. It means you care about doing things right. It means you’re pushing into territory where you’re growing. It’s uncomfortable but it’s honest.
Most people never feel like imposters because they’re not doing anything that challenges them. So if you’re doubting yourself, good. You’re not faking it. You’re stretching.
You don’t get standing ovations for turning up every day. You don’t get medals for consistency. There’s no trophy for repeating the same task with no external reward.
But that’s where greatness lives.
In the early starts. In the failed attempts. In the late nights spent questioning it all. In the private moments no one sees or claps for.
You show me someone at the top of their game, and I’ll show you someone who knows how to get on with it when it’s boring. Someone who’s failed repeatedly and still turned up. Someone who isn’t chasing validation, they’re chasing truth.
Most people won’t stay the course.
They’ll start. They’ll post. They’ll dabble. But the second it gets repetitive, they’ll label it burnout or boredom or “not feeling aligned.”
But the ones who stay? The ones who become excellent?
They embrace the boredom. They build on the dull days. They see repetition not as the enemy but as the price.
And when we see them succeed, it looks effortless. It looks like passion.
But it isn’t.
It’s discipline, disguised as talent.
It’s tedium, disguised as flow.
It’s failure, disguised as mastery.
The next time you’re scrolling through someone’s win, whether it’s a perfect painting, a flawless dance, a heavy lift, a six-figure launch, or a viral piece of writing, don’t ask yourself “Why can’t I do that?”
Ask instead:
Am I willing to do what they did when no one was watching?
Am I ready to be bored for a very long time?
Because that’s where the real game is played.
And that’s where you’ll find out who you really are.
