When we see someone who is amazing at something, we assume they have a deep passion for that. That’s probably true, or at least it probably was true, but either way it’s not the exception. Passion won’t get you mastery. A desire for mastery is the only thing that will get it.

Passion matters. Passion will get you started. But passion becomes hard to sustain. Achieving mastery doesn’t come from doing something once, or twice, or even ten times. It comes from doing it thousands or even millions of times. There’s the debatable claim of 10,000 hours, but whether that is the exact number is beside the point. There are many hobbyists who become pretty good and are happy with their level of skill. That’s wonderful, but it’s not mastery.

To achieve mastery, you have to repeat what you’re doing far, far past the point of novelty. Achieving mastery is, well, boring. If you get bored and stop, that’s fine, but you won’t achieve mastery. “An amateur practices until they can get it right. A professional practices until they can’t get it wrong.” People say a lot of good things about deliberate practice, but nobody ever says it’s fun. It’s often the opposite. Passion doesn’t prevent the boredom, and it’s not passion that makes people keep trying through that boredom.

What motivates people who achieve mastery to push through the boredom and tedium and frustration is the goal of mastery itself. I sometimes think that the desire for mastery of a thing at some point can exceed the passion for that thing. Perhaps not just “can” but “must.” It’s not about joy or passion because those become harder and harder to find. It’s not about extrinsic rewards, because those are elusive and for most skills not that great. Maybe being competitive will get you there, but arguably the desire to beat everyone else is a version of mastery. Eventually all motivations get burned away except the desire for mastery itself. To achieve mastery, your goal must be mastery. It won’t come any other way.