Are You Passionate About Your Job?
July 30, 2009 by Darlene McDaniel
Filed under Jobs
A friend of mine who just got a job told me today, she is only working for the money. She has no passion for the vocation she has chosen. I know that is a common theme for many employees. I am just amazed by it. The job my friend has is a great job opportunity. She didn’t even have to interview to get the job and it is a professional job. They liked her, they
know she is a hard worker and she will do a good job for them, but I personally think it is a waste.
I don’t recommend that you take a job for the money only. I do believe that you should have some level of passion for the job or why bother? Am I the only one thinking this way? I am sure most people are working the job they have, and it’s just a job, but find that sad. I believe that we can work a job for the money and enjoy doing what we are doing. Passion is not overrated. I believe passion should be a critical component in the job you work.
Martin Luther King Jr., once said “If a man is called to be a street-sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street-sweeper who did his job well.”
Thoughts on adding passion to your job:
1. Have a vested interest in the success and failure of the work you do
2. Be creative – Get creative
3. Have fun with your job. If it isn’t a fun job, find a way to add fun to what you do. Enjoy your job!
4. Take time to rest, get refreshed. Refreshing yourself will give your fresh perspective on the job you get to do everyday.
5. Make an impact in the lives of people and/or the organization
It is a waste of time living for the weekends to come. That makes for long weeks. Life is short. Find something you enjoy doing. If the job you have right now is not the one, get out it and go find the one. If you hold on to a job you don’t want or like, than I believe you are actually working someone else’s job. Let go of the job and find the one that you are suppose to be working.
Image Credit: sxc.hu
It’s hard to be effective at a job unless you have at least a little passion for it. But for some, passion may be elusive. Take, for example, the person who needs a job to help support his or her family. Maybe that’s enough passion for that worker, but not for most.
I agree with you that one should “carve out” a little bit of passion or creativity where it otherwise doesn’t exist, and management should foster that where it’s necessary.
Unfortunately, you can come into a job with passion, only to lose it when management sucks the passion out of the job – and the workplace. That’s the clearest signal that it’s time to look elsewhere.
Provocative post!
Thanks for the reply. Anyone can enter a job with a passion for the work, the industry, the business mission, and the idea of growing professionally. I’m not saying management – and yes, I mean difficult, unfocused, and/or oppressive management – can suck the passion out of you permanently, but enough to erode any passion you have, at least while you hold that job. If you can maintain your passion in an unhealthy work environment, then you deserve a medal for being able to persevere so well and not let it bother you. But otherwise, in order to regain any or all of your lost passion, you may have no other choice but to look elsewhere.
Hi Rick, Thanks for stopping by bizzia Careers. I appreciate your comment. I would like to disagree on one point you make and I would love to hear your thoughts. I don’t believe other people can suck out your passion, including management. I believe managers can make things difficult for people, but people with true passion for what they are doing are not moved by other people’s foolishness. If the environment is bad and the employee truly has passion, the organization may lose the individual, but I don’t believe that passion can be affected by others unless you give others the power to impact it. Keeping your fire lit about the things you have a passion for is up to you as an individual. That’s my thought.
Thanks again for stopping by!
Darlene