The trick is to “find what you’re passionate about” and do that, right? Wrong.
Posted on 23. April 2009 by JasonSeidenYou can follow a gut instinct, but you can’t follow your passions. It’s impossible. Passion grows from being fully invested in what you’re doing, and you can’t follow something that hasn’t grown yet. Gut feelings may steer you toward your passion, but just as likely, gut feelings will help you turn whatever you’re doing into something you can be passionate about.
The following is adapted from a blog post I wrote earlier this year. I’m reprising it now after having seen this and receiving an email from a college student who thinks he should give up accounting to follow his passion for music. Mike Rowe in the video is right; the college student is wrong.
(The college kid may be right insofar as I don’t recall anyone growing up wanting to be a bean counter, either… but I know quite a few happy accountants.)
The reality is, while some of us are made for a specific life, most of us are generalists. For generalists, our passion finds us, often in drips and drops, sourced across many different activities, until we finally see how to pull our world together in a way that makes us smile. It doesn’t really matter what a generalist does… because as long as s/he puts his/her heart and soul into the work, s/he can cultivate a passion for the work. Once you begin to apply yourself, your passions will begin speaking to you and making suggestions about how to change your surroundings to become even more passionate, but that is in the future. That all happens once the fire in your belly is burning brightly enough to matter.
At the beginning, you’re not ablaze. You’re a small pile of kindling at the camp site, and there’s a strong breeze blowing. Do you know what happens when you try to run from one spot to another with lit kindling in your hands? The fire dies. So before we start exploring this option or that one, we need to stoke the flames first. And that means staying focused on one thing. One fire. It may not be the location for the eternal flame, you may not even last a year where you are, but right now, we have got to invest everything we have in getting ourselves fired up about it before we can move to someplace else, because just like a campfire, if we move before the fire’s burning, it’ll go out and we’ll have to start all over.
Stop running around trying to find your passion. Your passion is already in your hands. It’s delicate, and it needs to be cultivated—wherever you are right now—before you can transfer it.
If there is one difference between the coaching I do and what others do, it’s this: I’ll help you draw your passion out, and won’t send you on a wild goose chase looking for it.
2 Comments on “ The trick is to “find what you’re passionate about” and do that, right? Wrong. ”
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I respectfully agree and disagree with what you have said.
After viewing the video, I believe I see where your blog post is coming from. (And by the way, I grew up on a farm – all you use is the rubber band) But – I think if are doing a job for which we have no real passion, we might as well be strangling ourselves.
Passion is what drives us. Yes, there are those that can do any job and feel they are happy doing it, but when you do follow your passion with purpose, you will do far better at what you are doing.
What is the key there? Purpose. I know my purpose is to motivate and empower others to their most amazing life with purpose and passion. If I were to take a job that wasn’t leading me in that direction, I would be unmotvated, unhappy, and very unhealthy. (i know, I had done that for years.) It didn’t matter how much of myself I put into the job, or how often I would try to convince myself that it was a great paying job and others would kill to have it, the fact was – I had no passion for it whatsoever.
I know two generalists. My father and my sister. They work hard at what they do. They give it their all and make good money. But neither one are happy – and yet they feel they have passion for what they do.
Its not just doing anything and finding a passion at it – its finding your passion and purpose and taking yoru skills to to make that passion work.
My $0,02 worth:)
Posted on 24. April 2009 at 06:13
I would agree and disagree also. I’ve seen so many paths to HR – the diversity is amazing. Some fall upon it because they have a glancing blow with some aspect of the HR. Other disciplines such as scientists and engineers seem destine from high school. Even accountants and analysts have a sense from early in their lives that this is a calling for them. My advice to every one who comes to my HR door who is unhappy is to discover and seek their passion – it is in their passion they will excel, they will wake up each morning excited, motivated and purposeful. I’ve seen far too many people in a career that was motivated by their father or mother or worse money – they are doing what they do because they thought that was what they should do or it was what was expected. Pity. Find your passion and live it. Those who work for money have as Cynthis mention often have no passion.
My $0.02.
Posted on 24. April 2009 at 16:07