Is the search for a passion overrated?
Rachel Schofield is a qualified career coach who made her own pivot after 20 years as a BBC journalist and news presenter.
In this article, Rachel invites you to rethink your own relationship with, and expectations of, passion in work. She discusses how you can explore your passion and what you should consider when re-evaluating your career.
You can find Rachel’s book, The Career Change Guide: Five Steps to Finding your Dream Job, here.
“Follow Your Passion!”
It’s meant as a liberating call to tap into the thing that brings you alive. To connect your work to your one burning love in life and enjoy the shower of fairy dust that results.
Which sounds marvelous. If you have a passion. If your passion can be turned into a job. If that job can pay the bills. And if the other elements of that job suit you too.
Now don’t get me wrong. As a career coach, I’m fully committed to you designing a work-life that lights you up, energises and fulfills you.
But there’s an unhelpful idea that’s developed around passion-driven careers, that there is a small, elite band of people who make money from a turbocharged hobby, and then there’s the rest of us – a bunch of dullards toiling away unfulfilled until we can find the one magic match to ignite our fervor.
And it’s making me wonder … has passion become an unintended tyrant? One that some of us find stressful, awkward and unhelpful? What if you just don’t feel you have a “thing” - whether it’s for sustainability, songwriting or shabby chic? What if your interests went out the window with your long hours or the birth of your first child?
Or what if you have dozens of passions? Is there one which one might hold the key to your ideal career or are they best kept separate from your work? Just because you like cooking, does it mean you should retrain as a pastry chef? Should an interest in politics have you knocking on doors asking old ladies if you can count on their vote?
Maybe. Maybe not.
So how do you work out where passion fits into your relationship with work?
I’d suggest that, just as in a personal relationship, passion looks and feels different for everyone and how much you need of it professionally is totally up to you.
Let’s take the word itself …
“An intense desire for something, a powerful or compelling emotion, an ardent affection”
How do you respond to that definition? Does it immediately bring activities to mind? Does it create a little frisson and quicken your heartbeat?
Or does it feel better if I take it down a notch or two?
“A feeling of excitement for something, an enthusiasm or eager interest”
What happens then? If I ask you to list your Interests, rather than your Passions, is that a
more engaging exercise?
Noticing the importance (or otherwise) of passion to you individually is a great starting point.
Because satisfying work has been shown to involve many things: playing to your strengths and using the skills you enjoy; meeting your values (which can range anywhere from fun and adventure to purpose, growth and recognition); fitting around your practical needs regarding family, location, salary and balance.
And Passions (or did you go for Interests?) are just another part of the puzzle. For some of us they’re crucial to our future work, for others less so. Consider how important it feels to you to connect your professional identity to a topic, cause or pastime that floats your boat.
When you study your own list or Passions/Interests, get curious about the following:
Some interests are going to remain firmly in the hobby zone as a source of fun, stimulation and relaxation. And there’s no shame in that. Which of yours do you simply want to make more time for outside of work? Or perhaps even shape your work to fit around? Who says your delight in wild camping needs to be channelled into a career move? Turning a fun activity into a profession could suck out the very elements you love and demand tasks and skills you don’t enjoy at all.
One or two interests may really grab you and make you wonder if you could take something you love and make it pay. What could that look like? How many ways can you think of to monetise your hobby? What small steps could you take to investigate and test your idea rather than merely daydream?
More subtle, but perhaps most valuable, is to find the themes you can see emerging from your list.
Your Passions/Interests can form a rich source of data to help shape rather than rigidly dictate your career choices. You want to get interested in what’s really going on when you say you love space travel and fashion magazines, so you can deepen your self-knowledge and open up some new work possibilities but don’t accidentally follow your ‘passion’ off a cliff if that’s not really right for you.
Let’s suppose you’re heavily involved in your local hockey club. Should you get a qualification as a sports coach? Mortgage your house and open a gym? Not necessarily. But what is that telling you about yourself? Is it an interest in fitness and well-being? Or more about the love of the team dynamic? Perhaps the leadership involved in pulling together a bunch of people? The satisfaction of planning and delivering a training programme?
Your interests can guide you in many ways – they can shape decisions about the kind of place you work, the skills you use or the clients you serve, just as much as directing you to a radical stand-alone passion project or entrepreneurial venture.
If you love sports, you might be just as happy taking your brilliant accountancy skills into a major sports brand as setting up your own line of leisurewear. If you’re a fully signed up member of the local drama club, you might want to apply for RADA or you might find the right buzz using your digital marketing skills for a flagship theatre company. Or you might simply want to be in this year’s panto and head into work as normal.
Is passion everything?
You choose.
