The “follow your passions” advice has been a widely touted benchmark for helping young people decide the careers they wish to pursue. Steve Jobs gave a now famous commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Stanford University where he advocated a heart following path because life is short and death is nigh. Quotes similar to “find a job you enjoy doing, and you’ll never work a day in your life” have been attributed to Confucius, Mark Twain, and Winston Churchill.
Then there are those that argue to opposite. Mike Rowe of “Dirty Jobs” fame (ironically not referring to Steve), has a viral video of his own where he tells his audience “don’t follow your passion“. Author and Georgetown University professor Cal Newport agrees that following ones passion is a bad idea and wrote a book on the subject.
I think the main takeaway is that the “follow your passions” advice is incomplete. It isn’t wrong for this to be a goal. The issue is most young people, and many older people, haven’t developed passions. The problem with advocating a passion following route, especially to young people, is it implies that passion for your work is something you find. Like a soulmate, passion isn’t found. It forms and grows over time.
A culture of job hopping in pursuit of one’s passion has contributed to the unpredictable job market we currently face. I have no issues with someone realizing the organization doesn’t hold the same values as they do, or finding out the culture isn’t a good match for one’s approach to work. These are different than leaving because one isn’t feeling passionate about the work.
I believe that passion evolves. First, exposure to different tasks, roles, and responsibilities is sometimes needed to understand the possibilities within your chosen work. These exposures can lead to being curious about a specific or multiple aspects of the career. Delving into your curiosities and developing interests improves your proficiency within the job. It is from the satisfaction and reward of being very proficient in your role that passions blossom.
In short, the best advice I can offer is to seek broad experiences in a career field that you find interesting. Volunteer for assignments that expose you to different areas of the industry. Discover aspects that are interesting to you and bring out a natural curiosity within you to learn more about them. As you learn more, you may gravitate towards aspects that invoke some excitement and desire to become very good at that element of the work. From there, passions can fully form and lead to your life’s work.
I hope you allow yourself the chance to follow the passion you create.