I know, I know. When I first heard it, I was mad too. But let me explain…
In Author & MIT Professor Cal Newport’s book, ‘Be So Good They Can’t Ignore You’ he makes the bold claim: “Following your passion is bad advice.”
The first time I read it, I was angry too. ‘What do you mean BAD advice?? I’ve been trying to follow my passion for the last 15 years. How DARE he!!’
But then I read his explanation…
“There are two reasons why I dislike the passion mindset (following your passion). First, when you focus only on what your work offers you, it makes you hyperaware of what you don’t like about it, leading to chronic unhappiness. This is especially true for entry-level positions, which, by definition, are not going to be filled with challenging projects and autonomy - those come later. When you enter the working world with a passion mindset, the annoying tasks you’re assigned or the frustrations of bureaucracy can become too much to handle.”
What Cal recommends is, “instead turn your focus towards becoming so good they can’t ignore you. That is, regardless of what you do for a living, approach your work like a true performer.”
In other words: build skills, try things, fail, learn, try again, build career capital, practice, be patient, and get lost in the work.
This shift in mindset changed me. Because he’s right...
Identifying what we are passionate about, what we care most about, are most interested in - is the easy part. It’s your passion, your interest, it should come naturally!
Translating that passion into a career, a source of income, a side-project, and a day-in and day-out grind, that is the hard part.
Feeling that the work matters, is important, is making a difference when down deep in the weeds, that is the hard part.
Being told to just ‘follow your passion’ implies that once you do that, the rest will be easy. When in fact, the opposite holds true.
Once you put your passion into the 9 million different action paths one could take, there will still be jerk bosses. There will still be bureaucracy, shitty pay, layoffs, FOMO, low bank accounts, pressure to keep up with the Jones’, etc. (Side note: I am so mad at the Jones’ and what they’ve done to us wherever they are…)
But if we are able to shift our mindset to a builder/creator mindset, someone working to become so good no one can ignore us, it enables us to keep our eye on the bigger prize. To handle the frustrations that inevitably come our way because we know we are working towards something bigger than ourselves.
It’s not easy, I struggle with it too - especially as our global issues (climate change, wildlife degradation, systemic racism, and income inequality) continue to mount). Especially in a social media look-at-me culture.
But that’s why we’re building something special here with our Make Dents initiative.
Truly supporting one another in our collective journeys to creating more positive dents in the universe.
For is that not what life is really all about? Grateful to have you here.
Zach