The Problem with Passion

I run a company called Careerlove.ca and while I want people to be excited, motivated and have a career that fits their life, I will be the first to admit that I have a problem with the word passion. Every week I meet another person who is struggling with their career. This struggle is made worse by all the noise out there about PASSION PASSION PASSION.

Just find your passion.

I am SO PASSIONATE about what I do.

My PASSION is nutrition. (or coaching or finance or dogs or whatever!)

And my answer to this passion problem is actually a question.

“Can you name 5 things in your life that you are PASSIONATE about?”

Now — for about 10% of people the answer is YES (those people usually aren’t reading these posts!) but for the other 90% of us (me included!) the answer looks more like this:

“I like a lot of things! I love being around people and connecting with people but I don’t know if that is a passion? Should that be a job?”

So here is what I tell people about passion summarized into a few key points:

So to start — don’t start with passion. Start with a piece of paper. Write down what you want from your life. Write down three different ideas for jobs/careers that you think look great and learn more about them! (that doesn’t mean googling them — it means head on out into the world and LEARN about them EXPERIENCE them). You will get to know yourself in the process.

Need help finding your next career? I can help with that. Check out the ways we can work together here