I recently read this article which was about how following your passion was bad career advice. I'm interested to hear others thoughts on this, because it seems to be a common bit of advice.
I totally agree that behaviour changes attitudes and not the other way around. But something still bugs me about this article and I can't articulate it. Maybe its the question about how we achieve mastery - why would I want to master something I have no interest in?
Speaking with a paling jammed in my butt cheek...
I've been on both sides of this. I did IT for 10 years, because I love computers and everything to do with them, and got massively frustrated, disillusioned, and burnt out -- I think of it has having sold the hobby I loved. (I even have a great allegory I tell about a stamp collector getting a job in a stamp shop, but it's not massively relevant here). On the other hand, I drove trains for a while and enjoyed it, but didn't stick with it in part because it wasn't something that continued to interest me once I'd learnt how and considered myself competent at doing the job. Now I'm back, learning something new -- management.
As it turns out, I don't think my true passion was ever really computers. My true passion is *learning*. I loved *learning* how to build IT infrastructures and wrangle all the bits and bytes, I loved *learning* how to drive trains, and I'm loving *learning* how to manage a team of people to do great things. Perhaps we *do* have to follow our passion, but people are just really bad at identifying what their passion really is, and that's why they're dissatisfied?
There are three things to
There are three things to consider here:
People who have found the intersection of those things are the ones who will tell you to follow your passions because they know it is possible.
I think it's good to teach
I think it's good to teach young people how to think hard about what their supposed passion is and what was the source for this passion (and to learn how to perform this re-evaluation continually throughout their lives). It seems more important to learn good life skills, such as how to communicate, how to be a good employee, how to have a great attitude regardless of the task, than to try to start off a career with a goal of mastering a professional skill, that you don't like and that's possibly not going to be as highly valued in 5 or 10 years. Getting good references, learning how to create and maintain relationships, while following a passion, seems like a perfectly good model for success. Even if that particular passion doesn't pan out, you'll have the skills needed to make that smart career move when you need to.
J
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So I was reading this full
So I was reading this full article by Cal Newport the other day, which is where this idea comes from: http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/follow-your-passion-is-bad-st…
And I agree with it a fair bit. I'm still not sure how to apply it exactly - you can't just do something you hate and get good at it (how would you stay motivated to become an expert at it, without blowing your brains out at the end?)... But then how do you choose?
One of the key things to bear in mind is he's saying that your choice of a job/career is secondary. Primary is the kind of lifestyle you want to live. What does it look like? What kind of freedoms and restrictions do you want? What kind of people will you meet? What kind of holiday time will you get? Can you work from home at all?
His point is that many jobs may satisfy you well enough in that the field meets your passion, but what will you actually be doing in those 40+ hours of work a week? Where will they be spent? What will your commute be like? How much time will you have to spend at a desk? The idea, if I have it right, is to think about what your working life will actually be like, in its day to day demands, over the years.
The other thing to bear in mind is that the mark of excellence is results: do you produce great, easy to communicate, obviously beneficial results? Can you tell others why they are so good? I'm reminded of the point that competency in one area doesn't limit you to that thing forever; it proves your value much more universally.
So, for instance, my goals for the next, say, ten years, are to work in digital marketing. I don't know it's my life's passion, but I know it tickles my brain and I'd like to get good at it. I know that the demands and freedoms of the kinds of roles involved suit me very well, too. But what happens five or ten years from now - what if I decide it's not for me? Well, ok fine. First off, I learned a lot about myself, what I enjoy, what I don't enjoy, how I work, what I'm good at. But second, and more importantly: I'll have produced really good results (hopefully at some kind of managerial level by that point), which will be clear signs of competency I can leverage when moving across disciplines. With the help of Manager Tools and the interviewing series I can also effectively communicate these competencies to a hiring manager.
I think that's the core thing here. It's not just about becoming a linchpin in your own very specific niche. It's about proving you can learn, grow, master something and, crucially, achieve great results.
Moreover, it beats sitting on your hands, poking and prodding your way through life, hoping something will reveal itself which has the right mix of being enjoyable, something you can do well, and something that pays. I think Cal's right, in that you rarely know the right mix of these from the start, and have to work at it as described.
Also, I should add, there's more to life than a job. Part of his point is about identifying the lifestyle ahead of the job. Maybe this discipline you're trying to master isn't your life's passion, but at least it affords you a working schedule and structures that allows you time to build up your life in other areas, when you clock out, or because of other lifestyle considerations that went into this choice of job (e.g. You get to spend a lot of time meeting new people each day; you get to work by the sea side; you get to work 10minutes from home). I'm not saying only live when you're not at work - but that you don't have to find your life's passion in your work right away. You can find it in your romances, your hobbies, your friends and family, all outside of work. And putting "lifestyle" ahead of "job title/career" in your head is part of attaining that.
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Rory
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