How many times have you heard ‘do what you love and you’ll never have to work another day in your life?’ or ‘Just follow your passion’ as advice for what to pursue in life? Its simple right? You follow your dreams and you will be constantly satisfied and fulfilled in your life and job!
But is that true?
According to the Passion Trap:
‘The more emphasis you place on finding work you love, the more unhappy you become when you don’t love every minute of the work you have.’
This leads to two problems. We spend so much time looking for ‘the perfect thing’ that we love and when we do find it we have ridiculously high expectations that we should be constantly happy with it and enjoying it. This ultimately leads to lower levels of satisfaction and leaves us chasing the next thing that was ‘actually’ the thing we loved.
So what then, if not to follow what you love?
According to the author and Georgetown professor Cal Newport, it actually works the other way. You start to develop a passion for what you are doing after you have become good at it. You derive more satisfaction from doing well, from knowing what you are doing, from the sense of autonomy and understanding than from finding that elusive passion of yours.
And that makes it so much easier! Instead of wasting your time endlessly seeking your passion and being discouraged when it fails to fill you with happiness at every minute, seek to become good at something and let go of the expectations of having to love it. Chances are you will end up becoming passionate about it in the long run.
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