(2017-08-23) To Find Work You Love Don't Follow Your Passion 80000 Hours

80,000 Hours: To find work you love, don't follow your Passion (Making A Living)

Now, we’re fans of being passionate about your work. Research shows that intrinsically motivating work makes people a lot happier than a big pay cheque

However, there’s four ways “follow your passion” can be misleading advice.

One problem is that it suggests that passion is all you need.

even if you’re interested in the work, if you lack the other key ingredients of job satisfaction that research has shown are important, you’ll still be unsatisfied

A second problem is that many people don’t feel like they have a career-relevant passion

In fact, “following your passion” can make it harder to satisfy the other ingredients, because the areas you’re passionate about are likely to be the most competitive, which makes it harder to find a good job.

The third problem is that it makes it sound like you can work out the right career for you in a flash of insight.

The fourth problem is that it can make people needlessly limit their options

If your work helps others, you practice to get good at it, you work on engaging tasks, and you work with people you like, then you’ll become passionate about it.

Many successful people are passionate, but often their passion developed alongside their success, rather than coming first.

to read more about the case against following your passion, we recommend Cal Newport’s book, So Good They Can’t Ignore You.