“Find a job you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.”
At first glance, this sounds like solid advice, doesn’t it? After all, no one wants to remain stuck in an unfulfilling work from home job to make ends meet.
Unfortunately, this often-quoted career advice isn’t as helpful as we like to think.
This doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy your work. However, we must make pragmatic career choices and balance pursuing our passions to maintain financial stability.
Don’t believe me? Here are some reasons why following your passion is bad advice – and what to do instead.
Your Passion isn’t Always Profitable
The cold, hard truth is that not all passions can earn big bucks.
Sure, you love making art, but are you good at it? Even if you are, do you know how to market yourself to people willing to pay for commissions?
This ties in with another piece of career advice that’s the complete opposite of following your passions: “Walang pera sa X.” (“There’s no money in X.”)
Most of the time, “X” refers to the liberal arts or obscure courses like creative writing or history (yes, I’m still bitter about it).
Your Passion Changes Over Time
Another reason following your passion is bad advice is it presumes our passions don’t change over time.
What we’re passionate about today might not be the same thing we’ll be into a couple of years from now.
Back in grade school, I was passionate about science and even dreamt of becoming a scientist one day.
However, encountering chemistry and physics in high school changed all that – and I ended up being passionate about history instead.
Limited Career Options
One of the most common passion pitfalls is limiting your career options to the fields you currently like.
After all, if this is what you love doing, why consider anything else?
One of my main goals is to become a teacher, so much so that after graduation, I didn’t consider applying for any other career besides this.
Then the pandemic happened.
Schools shifted online and froze hiring on new teachers, leaving me with no work opportunities.
You Lose Interest in Your Passion When It Becomes Your Job
When you think about it, turning your passion into a job doesn’t always lead to happiness.
For one, jobs often involve repetitive and monotonous tasks. Sure, you’ll initially feel more motivated doing it. However, the more you continue working, the more it’ll feel more mundane and dull over time.
Soon, what was once an enjoyable activity becomes yet another task you need to finish during your shift.
It Puts Unnecessary Pressure on Your Job
When we work at a job we’re passionate about, there’s pressure to excel at it. After all, when you love doing something, you should be good at it, right?
Unfortunately, passion doesn’t always equate to skill. Just look at talent show contestants.
When we don’t excel at something we like, we begin to doubt and push ourselves harder to improve, leading to increased stress and burnout.
What Should You Do Then?
If following your passion is bad advice, what should you do instead? Here are some alternatives:
Focus on Your Strengths
You may not excel at doing what you love, but there should be other things you can do well.
Instead of pursuing your passions, find the areas you’re good at.
Doing so opens more employment opportunities, such as online work from home jobs, where you’ll find more success and fulfillment.
Best of all, being good at something often makes you passionate about it as well.
Remain Open to Exploring New Experiences and Careers
Instead of limiting yourself to the fields you like, be open to opportunities outside these and find new interests. Doing so helps you remain adaptable and open to new experiences and opportunities.
“Follow Your Blisters”
Rather than following your passions, follow your blisters instead.
A blister is an activity you return to again and again so you can get better at it – even when it’s difficult.
Unlike your passions, which may weaken when you encounter challenges and setbacks at work, you’ll never lose motivation to work on your blisters. Over time, you’ll learn to overcome these challenges and become more competent in these activities.
Follow Your Passion? No Thanks.
Although it makes for a nice “feel-good” message, following your passion makes for bad career advice.
Like our examples above, though, there are several alternatives to help you find fulfillment and success in your career.
Still struggling with finding a suitable work from home job? Remote Staff is here to help.
Our jobs list contains plenty of available positions for you to choose from. These range from online transcription jobs to online design jobs and anything in between.
Ready to start your online career? Sign up here. Good luck!
