Passion in Work – Taking It Further
Tanmay Vora
Couple of weeks back, I wrote about Passion in Work. Around the same time, I read this post titled, “Forget Passion, Focus on Process” at 37Signals blog which really got me thinking.
The premise?
The problem with the “follow your passion” chorus: We can’t all love the products we work with. Someone has to do the jobs and sell the things that don’t seem sexy but make the world go round.
Here are a few important observations:
First thing – a lot of people I have met/seen don’t really know what their passion is. Most of them take up the work they encounter first and keep doing it. They get into it by a chance. A few bold ones experiment with different areas of work before finally finding out something that they really enjoy doing everyday.
Second thing – people don’t always like what they do, but they still keep doing it well because the larger context of their work excites them. Even when people pursue work they love doing, there is a lot of chunk within that same work which they may not like (daily grind).
Third thing – ideas of ‘passion’ and ‘job satisfaction’ only come into play when we have a choice. There are millions of people across the globe who don’t have any choice about what they are doing. Their options are limited, and hence they try to be the best in whatever they do without thinking too much about their passion. (Read this story). The key is to do the work where we can expand our choices.
Finally, different people are passionate about different things. If our passion is aligned to a very narrow activity (e.g. performance testing of a software) then we are more likely to lose motivation at some point. So, our passion has to be defined by a broader context (e.g. constantly raise the bar of quality we deliver to customer). While the former is very specific, the latter provides us many more avenues to pursue our passion.
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Join in the conversation: Is this “passion” thing overrated? Does thinking too much about our passion make us even more unhappy with our current work? Is it always possible to find the work we really love doing? Tell us what you think.
Hi dear,
Too good…very nicely put together..
ATB,
Deepa
Thanks Deepa, I am so glad you liked the ideas presented in post.
I would say ,Passion is an elixir of life,it is beyond the concept of achieving goals describe by few set of human beings as great… let journey be the destination, this way we will NOT busy focussing on the set targets which some day going to end, either into disappointment or into happiness; but they have their end for sure. Life is beyond that, it is beautiful but we make the hell of it by narrowing down the perspective & associating everything with material gains. We all have enormous potential but we willingly restrict it by setting smaller goals & getting euphoric post accomplishment(in best case) then another target ..and so on.
Let our passion bring the best in us…Even If You are not a part of recognized intellectuals or Nobel Laureate may Not be the elite of MIT/Harvard/Oxford , yet you can be an Edison of some unknown territory and can not only Light the World but also enlight the humanity…The silence of passion fuels the ignited desires.
Thanks for adding your thoughts here Zafar. Two things I particularly loved from what you have written: “Let the journey be the destination” and “Let our passion bring best in us”.
My point here is, if we do not have work which meets our passion, we need to extend our passion to find higher meaning in our work. Thinking too much about passion only makes us more uncomfortable with our current work.
I think that passion is what drives each one of us to do our best. Work done without passion might be competent, but it lacks the luster that work done with passion has.
People often give excuses like ‘I am not doing what I like. So how can I be passionate about it?’. I think that excuses like that serve no purpose. Passion is not something that is set in stone. Passion can be aroused.
Which is why I am extremely proud of the work that our organization does. We, at Beyond Horizons (www.beyondhorizons.in), are in the field of corporate training. And what makes us different, is the fact that we actually help people inspire themselves and find passion in what they do. Not just in theory, but through example.
@Beyond Horions – Thanks for adding your voice here. I have seen people putting the passion excuse for not doing their best. The point I wanted to drive is exactly that there is no point cribbing/thinking too much about passion when you cannot do/are not ready to do anything about it.
There are some “fortunate” individuals who are living their passion – their job is who they are and what they want. However there are also some of us whose work aren’t exactly what we are passionate about. But curiously, there are times when enough motivation and finding “meaning” to our work could bring out even just a spark of passion in what we do. It’s just a matter of seeing little things that we could love about what we do, despite that they aren’t exactly our passions.
Karoline, I appreciate your point. The idea is that when you don’t do the job you are not passionate about, we need to find motivation and meaning to generate that spark of passion. Secondly, we should strive to work in a way that it helps us expand our canvas and allow us to experiment. Who knows, that may reveal something we are passionate about!
I think that finding out passion requires us to experiment – and as professionals, we should remain open to try different things before we finally find something we love doing.
Thanks for adding the perspective.
Nicely written sir,
After reading this i got remembrance of your words ” Drive your future, don’t let your work drive it. ”
Truly inspirational.
Thanks Maulik! I am so glad you remember that advice.
Passion for me is essential. It also keeps evolving. Although it is not possible to always get the work we love most jobs desperately need love, they are waiting there for someone passionate about quality to touch them and improve them. We might feel frustrated when we don’t feel the passion for the work we do but that’s what prods us to find such a work and one fact beyond doubt is that whatever you do the knowledge you gain never goes wasted. When you are not in a job you love, that’s probably for getting you prepared for your passion.
Vamsi, That is another interesting way to look at it – when you don’t love the work you are doing, you are getting ready to find something that you love doing. Thanks for sharing that perspective.
Passion is what makes work feel like play. I once heard the advice: “if you get up more than 3 days in a row and are not happy at your work, you need to DO SOMETHING”.
I think you are right — it’s finding out what one’s passion is that will shift from a drifting to a more fulfilled person.
Great synopsis of where we are, and how we need to move forward to better place! More articles on how to develop our self-awareness to determine areas of passion (especially for those who may not have found it yet) would be awesome — I’m coaching a young person choosing a University education, with no idea of where to begin to find his passion. ideas, suggestions anyone?
Thanks Meryle, work becomes play once we are “actualized” with what we love doing. Problem is, a lot of people either don’t know where their passion lies. Another extreme is when people know their passion, but are not able to do anything much about it. They neither pursue their passion, nor focus on work they already have.
My point is that in such situations, it is better to focus on “now” rather than worrying too much about passion. More posts on this subject for sure.
For the young person you are coaching, I would say that there is no formula to find the passion. The only thing that works is to try out many different things upfront. The more you try, the more chances you get to find your true calling.
I hope that helps 🙂