Having a job that you’re passionate about is a high priority for modern jobseekers, especially among new graduates and younger professionals. Unfortunately, pursuing a career based solely on passion driving you isn’t the “ideal” people imagine it is.
What’s All The Excitement About Passion Anyway?
Celebrities may tell people to do what they’re passionate about and that success will inevitably follow, but that is the exception, not the rule. Being passionate isn’t inherently bad, but it’s not enough to carry you throughout your career.
Sometimes, passion can hurt much more than it helps. Wanting to enjoy work is fine, but relying on loving what you do for decades is unrealistic and can lead to bitterness and regret. The phrase “follow your passion” has become increasingly popular, even though doing so often leads to dead-ends and frustration. Even if you put aside the reality that most people aren’t sure about what their “passion” is and that they need to be able to feed themselves, it’s just bad advice.
Assuming you know what your passion is, and it can provide a stable income, passion is still fickle. There isn’t an infinite supply, and sometimes it disappears for a time only to reappear months or years later. While your passions aren’t always changing, over the course of years it likely will – especially if your job is directly related to it and you’ve been working in that field for a long time.
If you use passion to fuel your career, you’ll end up losing motivation and possibly hating your work. At the end of the day, no matter how much you like doing something, when you make it your job that means you must do all the undesirable things related to it as well. For example, some people may claim that traveling is their passion. However, if they travel most of the time for their job and can’t enjoy downtime while they travel, they’ll likely end up hating it. Jobs which require travel are often the most stressful and incapable of providing a work-life balance.
Passion can be a good supplement, even great at times, but choosing a long-term profession just because of it is dangerous and irresponsible. With that being said, it is incredibly important to enjoy what you do to a certain extent. Nobody wants to work a job that they dread for years, and that’ll only lead to burnout in the near future. It’s important to be realistic about what you love right now and what you can be happy doing long-term – as well as what can keep food on the table.
Before You Make A Drastic Decision In The Pursuit Of Whims, Consider A Few Things
- Whether your love of it will change or fade over time
- If you’re willing to do all the work that goes with the parts of it you don’t like
- Whether you’re actually good at it
- If you can still pay your bills (and meet any financial goals or expectations)
- If you are willing and able to “restart” your career progression
- Whether you can test it out or do it on the side before committing to it full-time
Consider Your Strengths
Rather than blindly following a passion, it may be better to look at the areas in which you excel. It’s easier to find a career based on work you’re good at and can enjoy doing, rather than what you enjoy the most currently. Also, when you become skilled at something, or are naturally talented at it, you generally enjoy it a bit more anyway. Following your passion can be a bit self-centered, and ultimately less fulfilling than being able to contribute a lot to the world or society. Seeing your labor impact others in a positive way will keep you going a lot further than the unpredictable whims of passion.
Unfortunately, being passionate about your career can also make you irrational. When you’re irrational it is possible your behavior could become inappropriate in some way, but it is more likely that people will use it to take advantage of you. If a business offering you a job believes you’re head-over-heels for the idea of what the role is, they may offer you a lot less than standard or require longer hours because they think you’ll accept it anyway.
Sometimes, if they think your expectations for the job are too unrealistic, they will not extend an offer to you – which is understandable because inaccurate expectations lead to employee dissatisfaction and high turnover. Even worse, you may make decisions which will hurt you in the long-term and make your goals much harder to reach.
If you still want to love what you do, search for it through meaning rather than passion. Focusing on things you care about can help fulfill you as well as keep you enjoying your work. If you really want to help others, you could become a civil servant. Additionally, if you wanted to help others but had a knack for technology, you could always pursue an IT job closely tied to medicine or security.
It’s really all about what makes you happy – even once the thrill of following your “passion” dies down. Caring about the impact your work can have will help you get through the hardships and unpleasant aspects that accompany every career, while keeping you appreciative of your job.
However, for more entrepreneurial endeavors, sometimes even caring about what you do can be worthless if you don’t have focus and consistency behind your actions. Focus on building systems and habits you can follow closely over a long period of time. The trick is to keep them as realistic as possible, so it isn’t a strain to keep it up. That way, even if you lose motivation, you’ll be able to push through it.
Conclusion
- When it comes to a career, ignore raw passion – it can be a side hustle or hobby
- Find things you’re good at
- Determine what you enjoy too
- Figure out which of your top picks can also satisfy your other requirements of a job (such as salary, work-life balance, stress, market stability, etc.)
- Create systems and habits to help you stay consistent and productive if you don’t have a boss or someone that can keep you accountable (e.g. side hustles, businesses, personal goals)
- Don’t let your emotions cloud your judgement – especially about decisions that can impact what you do for years to come
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