How to find your passion

Tuesday, March 15, 2016 Coftea Coftea , Thoughts , Work 8 Comments

Since starting work a number of years ago, I have been on the search for my passion but to no avail. Things I have tried taught me what I dislike, but what I like is few and short lived. This elusive passion I want is the passion in work, a career I could spent half my life building, be excited for and proud of. The search has so far been a needle in a haystack. Despite the lack of passion, I think I’m surviving okay in this rat race. A shelter over my head, ample food, occasional splurges and yearly vacations. I could continue to be okay, climbing the corporate ladder one step at a time. But the thought of going through life without knowing what I’m really good at scares me. Essentially, what we are good at defines us, and I will not stop searching until I discover who I really am.

I picked up a book recently which sheds light into my passion hunt. ‘So good they can’t ignore you’ written by Cal Newport, promises to debunk the ‘follow your passion’ career advice and spells out what led people to have great passionate careers. Does everyone has a passion? Is passion something innate in us? And most important, for people still lost in their search, can passion be developed? Not only it questioned the idea of chasing your passion, it reaffirms my belief that when you’re good at something, people can’t help but notice.

Passion is about being good at something

It is common perception that passion is something innate in all of us and we should keep searching until we find our passion. And in all likelihood, we wouldn’t say that our not so sexy day job is our passion. As such, we stop improving after attaining a level of competency, believing that our lack of passion causes us to reach our career plateau. But the book suggests that passion might not be innate and can be developed in each of us. Can one who is not trained to play any instrument ‘thinks’ he is passionate about music, yet drops everything, pursue a music career and be a superstar? Highly unlikely. On the other hand, can one who learned music at a young age, earns a living in a band, rough it out everyday to become successful and finally proclaims music is his passion? This I think is a more realistic story, which illustrates it is okay to start out without any idea what is our passion is. It will develop when we keep doing and become good at what we do. So, don’t stop at the plateau, climb higher, be above most people and get the prize called passion.

The 3 traits of great jobs

So we established that if we keep doing what we are good at, passion can be developed. It is especially important for people who are paid for their own crafts, like sportsmen, artists, musicians or even lawyers. But for normal office workers like myself, the idea of focusing on a single trait we want to be exceptional at is tough, since we are loaded with multiple responsibilities which require different skillset. Do I have to job hop around to find something that I like? But if I were to move around, I would never develop an expertise to be great at my work. What then should I lookout for? The book suggests 3 traits that passionate people possess. Autonomy, creativity and impact. To explain them in one sentence, these people exercise their autonomy to be creative, in order to create greater impact in their work. It boils down to a nurturing work environment that empowers their employees. The caveat though, is that the 3 traits is not something junior employees can have, but a privilege given to people in higher level positions who have proved themselves. And how to be like them? It comes back to being good at what you do.

Improving is not just practicing

To be good, we need to improve. Conventional wisdom taught us to keep practicing, like the way we memorise the timetable in our math classes. The rule of 10,000 hours, popularised by Malcolm Galdwell in his book titled ‘Outlier’, affirms the idea that 10,000 hours of practice can make an amateur into a master in any field. It made sense, but ‘So good they can’t ignore you’ gave me a new dimension, where practising does elevate us to being good, but if we want to move from good to great, deliberate practice is needed. By deliberate practice, we do not keep practising the familiar things, but allocate time to study and think about new ways to achieve better results. As an ex-DOTA player, this can’t be more true. The time I spent reading up on unfamiliar heroes and tactics employed by professional players made me a much better player than just playing my set of tried and tested heroes again and again. So be conscious of how we want to improve our craft. If we can get from good to great, passion is not the only reward. I believe opportunities and possibilities like we never imagine would open up.

In conclusion

I try not to wonder what is my passion nowadays. If something interesting pops up, instead of asking myself if that is my passion, I would just go ahead and try. And with work, I avoid the nagging voice that says ‘this can’t be a passion’, but the encouraging voice that says ‘do it and do it better than others’. I want to keep doing, constantly improving and be so good that I have the ability to choose a workplace that has the 3 traits of great work. If your story is similar to mine, pick up the book and start to be ‘So good they can’t ignore you’.