If you don’t want to end in a catastrophic state of affairs, don’t follow your passion.
Instead:
- Master rare and valuable skills—be so good they can’t ignore you.
- Then, gain more control over what you do and how you do it.
- Once possible, organize your career around your mission.
In his book “So Good They Can’t Ignore You”, Cal Newport shares a playbook for a satisfying and meaningful career that goes against popular advice to follow your passion.
Focus on providing value to people, not on what type of work can benefit you.
And backed by actual examples, he proves that most prominent and compelling careers were not based on passion initially, but passion grew with time.
That’s what I had an intuition about but couldn’t elaborate on or explain clearly.
You can’t find what you love doing by thinking beforehand. You need to take action and experiment to discover what you are passionate about.
And even more. You can make a pragmatic choice and fall in love with your job with time.
I would recommend the book to those who want to quit their job. The book might be an excellent compass to check if you are ready.