Here's Why You Don’t Want to Follow Your Passion

Here's why you don’t want to follow your passion

Try to envision your younger self. Back when you were 18, how would you have answered the question: “What's a career?”

Maybe you had your heart set on a particular path, maybe you were overwhelmed by the options, or perhaps you had no clue.

I had the unique opportunity to return to my high school to speak on a career panel earlier this year, where we discussed everything related to careers. My #1 piece of advice was this: If you’re still deciding what you want to do when you grow up, don’t follow your dreams; instead, follow what you’re good at.

“Follow your dreams” has to be the most well-intended but least helpful guidance I received when I was in my late teens and early twenties.

Instead, look for things that:

1. You have the potential to be really good at

2. You believe society will continue to value

If you get this combination right, work can be financially rewarding, you can experience mastery, and ultimately, you can get really passionate about what you are doing.

Passion comes from mastering something that society values.

Think of this this way:

Has there ever been something you dreamed of doing before it turned out to be unfeasible or not at all like you imagined it to be? If you were a 90s kid, maybe it was a paleontologist after seeing “Jurassic Park” or a storm chaser after watching “Twister.”

Alternately, has there ever been something you just happened to be good at that you then got passionate about after you learned: 

1. What it really took to succeed on a day-to-day basis

2. That you were well-suited to do it and succeed at it for a really long time?

The chances of a pursuit turning into a career are higher if it’s something you’re really good at rather than something you're just passionate about.

A career is an abstract concept until you find your way. They don’t always make sense along the way like they do in hindsight. 

The students I spoke with were interested in hearing this perspective on a career, and it seemed to resonate with their experiences. 

As a teenager, you can't possibly know what you want to do, and that's okay. If you’re an adult and you don’t know what you want to do, that’s okay, too. Pursue what you’re good at. You might just discover a passion you didn’t know you had…until now.