'Follow Your Passion' Is A Terrible Career Advice

We often hear the advice "Follow your passion" which is usually accompanied by the sentence in the same vein – "Do what you love and you will never work a day in your life".

Just follow your passion and you will have a fulfilling career. Who wouldn't want that, right?

This is an attractive message especially in my generation. It sounded so good that at one point I actually took it to heart. It was 9 years ago, right after I graduated in college that I made an agreement with myself that I will dedicate one year to pursue my passion – and try to become a professional basketball player.

At just around the third month, I started dreading doing the trainings and the workouts. I even started to hate the idea of playing the sport itself – so I quitted.

I thought it was that simple, what happened?

I have to be honest with myself. It was that time that I realized that I really don't want to be a professional basketball player and all the responsibilities that that job entails. I was just drawn to the idea of doing it for a living, the lifestyle it would bring, and ultimately, the idea of being able to fulfill my childhood dream.

The glaring problem was, I'm not even that good to start and I'm also not willing to put in the required effort to improve – I was basically in fantasy land.

There Is No "Special Job" Waiting

One of the problem with "follow your passion" is it implies that there's a predetermined job that's out there waiting for you. And the only way that you're going to be fulfilled is look for it and pursue it.

This is problematic because someone could spend their lives hopping from one job to another searching for that job that they believe is their calling – something that feels natural and easy. This would lead to a path full of disappointments because the truth is quite the opposite – meaningful work is anything but easy.

As the author Cal Newport suggests, passion is cultivated rather than followed. And it is with the day-to-day work and effort that one person becomes passionate with something – not the other way around. Passion is earned and not something we inherently have.

Telling a young person to follow their passion reduces the probability that they will end up passionate.
- Cal Newport

Fulfillment Comes From Competence

Job satisfaction could mean differently to a lot of people but it's fair to say that knowing that you're good at what you do would be up there on most people's lists.

Moments like being able to figure out the algorithm for a programming problem after hours of mental gymnastics, or solving a difficult bug after hours upon hours of strenuous thinking, or even just learning a new Vim command are just few of the things where I draw joy and fulfillment from what I do.

Just the fact that you're working on getting better at whatever that you're doing is a powerful feeling. Because if you eventually became good at something, it would bring a great sense of fulfillment and you'll want to do it every single day.

Following your bliss is a recipe for paralysis if you don’t know what you are passionate about. A better motto for most youth is “master something, anything”. Through mastery of one thing, you can drift towards extensions of that mastery that bring you more joy, and eventually discover where your bliss is.
- Kevin Kelly

Yes, there are some people that already found what they want to do in life at an early age. But for the most of us, it could take years or even decades. So instead of blindly following a passion, I found it more beneficial to rather follow my efforts – to genuinely reflect and determine where I'm putting the work in. Because it is where I'm giving myself the best chance to be good at, which would eventually lead to a rewarding career.