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Should You Follow Your Passion When Choosing A Career?

August 25, 2014 / by Raquel Royers

178515203Passion in the work place is something that many people think is hard to find. Passion is something that comes about after following a set of skills that you have into a career that you develop passion for and fall in love with. However, passion is often thought of as something that is concrete and finite. Really, it’s not. Passion is measurable—it can be gauged.

I recently came across an article titled, “The Secrets To Career Contentment: Don't Follow Your Passion.” You can kind of get the drift just from the title, but in turn this writer was saying that if you follow your passion you will NOT find a career that you are truly passionate about.

There are many opinions when it comes to passion. However, this one we [Half a Bubble Out] just don’t entirely agree with.

You should follow your passion when it comes to finding a career. But it takes time and experience to find your true passion. When you combine passion and your talents, the entire package for a passionate career is made.

It is often hard to find a career that you truly love and enjoy every single day. Having a job is always going to require labor but that’s ok. Labor is different from toil. If you feel as if you are in a job where your work has a purpose and meaning and it yields results, that’s labor; whereas toil has no purpose and doesn’t get you anywhere.

We believe in people following their passion and their set of skills to find jobs that have meaning and add to their everyday life.

Check out this slightly different opinion in the article below. What are your thoughts when it comes to passion and finding a career?

The Secrets To Career Contentment: Don't Follow Your Passion

Posted by, Sebastian Klein, Fast Company 

"Follow your passion," might be the most common career guidance, but it is actually bad advice.

The theory that following your passion leads to success first surfaced in the '70s, and in the intervening decades it’s taken on the character of indisputable fact. The catch? Most people’s passions have little connection to work or education, meaning passionate skiers, dancers, and readers run into problems. In a culture that tells people to transform their passions into lucrative careers via will-driven alchemy, it’s no wonder so much of today’s workforce suffers from endless job swapping and professional discontent.

ADOPT A CRAFTSMAN’S MINDSET.

People with the passion mindset ask “What do I really want?” which breeds an obsession with whether or not a job is “right” for them. They become minutely aware of everything they dislike about their work and their job satisfaction and happiness plummets. By contrast, the craftsman’s mindset acknowledges that no matter what field you’re in, success is always about quality. Once you’re focused on the quality of the work you’re doing now rather than whether or not it’s right for you, you won’t hesitate to do what is necessary to improve it.

The takeaway: Make the quality of what you do your primary focus.

PRACTICE HARD AND GET OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE. 

So, how do you become the craftsman? You practice.

A chess player must devote roughly 10,000 hours to becoming a master. Once that level has been reached, however, the real pros continue not just to practice, but to do it smarter. They study seriously and engage in what Newport terms deliberate practice. In the case of the chess player, deliberate practice might mean studying difficult theoretical chess problems well out of the established comfort zone.

The takeaway: Although deliberate practice is often strenuous and uncomfortable, it’s the only path to true mastery.

[Original article: The Secrets To Career Contentment: Don't Follow Your Passion]

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Topics: employee happiness, Passion & Provision

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