April 2010

Finding & Following Your Passion
By Pam Wessel

“Above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it.” 
~ Hardy D. Jackson

As career coaches at Golden Career Strategies, we are “passionate” about helping others find a more rewarding career!    So what does that really mean?    In other words, we are passionate about helping others find their passion in their career and life.

How many times have we asked ourselves or others “what do you want to be when you grow up?”    We ask this more often,  especially in the last few years as college graduates start out searching for their first career during these challenging times and as 25-30 career veterans leave the only career they’ve ever known and find themselves looking for their “encore career”.
      
Finding that perfect career or even the great career is challenging at best during tough economic times.    Is it really so important to be passionate about your career?  A recent Harris Interactive survey (2009) uncovered the following statistics on American job satisfaction:

•  Across America, 45% of workers say they are either satisfied or extremely satisfied with their jobs
•  Only 20% feel very passionate about their jobs
•  33% believe they have reached a dead end in their career
•  Most people spend 25% to 67% + of their waking hours working

If we spend a majority of our waking hours working, just how important is it to be satisfied at work.  Only 45% of Americans are satisfied with their jobs which mean 55% are NOT satisfied!   Only 20% of American workers feel very passionate about their jobs!   How does this impact worker productivity, customer service, and more?  If the job satisfaction trend is not reversed, economists say, it could stifle innovation and hurt America's competitiveness and productivity. And it could make unhappy older workers less inclined to take the time to share their knowledge and skills with younger workers.  (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34691428//, January 5, 2010)

There is much written and discussed in blogs about finding passion in your life and career.    So what is passion?

Now for the important part and to clear all confusion, passion is not…..

Source: Tai Goodwin, Career Coach

So finding your passion is not articulating and acting on your strengths, talents, or skills.   Rather exploring what you are passionate about will help you direct your career focus, efforts, and development.   Whether you are currently in a career or looking for a more rewarding career, it is shown that the more engaged and passionate one is in their job, the more productive they are.

In Good to Great, Jim Collins outlines the Hedgehog concept that was a critical component in companies making the leap to greatness.  As Collins poses, are you engaged in work that fits in your own three circles: what you are passionate about, what you are genetically encoded for, and what you can get paid for?     This concept also applies to individuals.  Note the realistic component of applying your passions to your career, i.e. getting paid.   Are you becoming great in your life and career by following your passion – realistically?

Just how can you identify and follow your passion?    “Avoid following the normal trial and error career selection process and following a career path to please others.  Focus first on what you want and enjoy in your ideal career.”   Discover your true passions, your desires and priorities, your true values, and talents.   Create or find the position the matches you best or pursue one that best suits YOU.  (Source: Bill Dueease, President, The Coach Connection.)    Recognize that your career wants and needs will change and finally get help from the right person, like a Golden Career Strategies Career Coach.

If you are not able to turn what you are most passionate about into a profitable career or business right now for whatever reason, remember you can always direct your passion to volunteerism and hobbies.   Share your passion with a non-profit that could use your time, talents, and skills on their advisory board or in direct volunteerism efforts.    

Your coaches at Golden Career Strategies offer a variety of tools and individualized coaching sessions to assist in your search to find and follow your passion including; our Personal Survey which guides you in outlining your accomplishments, interests, hobbies,  likes/dislikes, our Strong Interest Inventory, and the Values Survey.    All of these tools, combined with our career coaching will help you identify and pursue your passion and help you find a more rewarding career!!      (Read more at www.goldencareerstrategies.com)

"Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
~ Steve Jobs

“If there is no passion in your life, then have you really lived? Find your passion, whatever it may be. Become it, and let it become you and you will find great things happen FOR you, TO you and BECAUSE of you.”   ~T. Alan Armstrong