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Don’t Follow Your Passion – Here’s Some Real Career Advice

23rd April 2019

don't follow passion

Following your passion is terrible advice. ❎

But everyone tells us it’s the only way we’ll ever get the job ‘of our dreams’, or ever enjoy what we do. It’s what Steve Jobs said at the 2005 Stanford graduation ceremony: ‘You’ve got to find work you love’, or even the philosopher Alan Watts: ‘What makes you itch?’.

Yes, we want to be passionate in our jobs. But it’s not by finding your passions first and then looking for ‘the perfect job’ that you’ll find a career you’re passionate in. There’s a lot more you can do to make sure you find the right career.

This post is based on William MacAskill’s great book Doing Good Better, where he gives career advice to other people who want something more solid than ‘find your passion’.

 

Why ‘follow your passion’ is bad advice

  1. It suggests that passion is all you need

It’s not just about the passion. If a basketball fan starts playing basketball but works with people he hates, isn’t paid well or finds the work meaningless, I bet you he won’t be liking his job. 🏀

Passion is not the only thing you want to be looking at when picking a career, you also need to look at the conditions you’ll be working in, or ‘Hygiene’ factors.

  1. Many times, our passions don’t fit the world of work

A survey was done on the students of a Canadian university on their passions. 84% of the students said they had a passion. And 90% said those passions included sport, music and art. Awesome! But only 3% of jobs are in those industries.

Obviously, we have a little problem here.

  1. Interests change

What you’re passionate about now, you may not be interested in at all in the future. It would get pretty awkward if you spent 5 years studying medicine, to then realise that you don’t actually like medicine anymore. Oops. 🙄

  1. Humans are bad at predicting what makes us happy

You may think that a job as an astronaut may make you the happiest person on Earth. But, according to statistics, it’s highly likely that you’re wrong. Because as I said before, many times it’s the conditions of the job (co-workers, environment, location, commute) that bring happiness, not the job itself. Double oops.

Ok, so ‘follow your passion’ is bad advice, but what should I do instead? Will MacAskill gives us a good framework to help you find a career you like.

don't follow passion
wait… I think I see my passion!!!

 

Here’s some real career advice

First of all, studies have shown that there are 5 things that bring people satisfaction at their job:

  1. Independence
  2. Sense of completion
  3. Variety
  4. Feedback from the job
  5. Contribution

So after going through the steps below and singling out a few career paths that interest you, use the above 5 factors to compare each job to another.

Treat your career like a scientist, continuously testing hypotheses and investigating which career path would work for you.

1. Look at your track record and make a list

This isn’t as easy if you’re just starting out with your career and don’t have much experience in the career field (like me, at 20). But really it’s pretty simple; look at the different things, projects and activities you’ve done in the past. Maybe you liked a certain class at school, or you like a certain sport, or you like an activity (travelling, for example).

Then, make a list of all the career paths you might be interested in following – when I did this, I ended up with about 12. Go crazy, let your mind go wild. What is it that you really want to do? It could be anything from being a spy, to a scientist, to a pilot, to a software engineer to a diving instructor. Let the career aspirations (or dreams, as society calls them) go wild. 🧠

 

2. Talk to people on the job and investigate

So you now have a list of different hypotheses. What does a scientist do now? They investigate. Go through each hypothesis and learn as much as you can about that career path. Do some research online, look at the degrees that you might need, the different activities and skills that the job may require.

Another great way of investigating is simply talking to people on the job. Ask them whether you would be a good fit, ask the main reasons why people leave the job. Ask them about their experiences and reasons for working in this area. People are more than happy to share their story – all you have to do is contact them and ask to meet them for coffee ☕. You’re at a crossroads in your career and you’re asking for directions – that’s all. 

The problem with ‘follow your passion’ is that it assumes that all you have to do is look inwards and you’ll have all the answers. When really, as I said before, in order to find something that personally fits you, you need to investigate first. Find out as much as you can about the job, and then see if this is something that you would be interested in. Later we’ll cover an example of how a typical 23 year old may go about this.

 

3. If you care about impact, measure it

Will’s book is all about how to make an impact in the world, in the most efficient way. This really depends on whether you care about making an impact or not. If you do care, here are three ways to make the most impact:

  1. Being employed in an efficient organisation that solves some of the world’s most pressing problems
  2. Earning a lot of money to then give to efficient organisations
  3. Influencing others (e.g. politicians)

I won’t be digging too deep into making an impact in this blog post, but for more information go check out the 80,000 hours website!

 

4. Measure how much career capital you will build up

So you’ve now investigated and done some research on your different career paths. You may have eliminated a few because you realise you wouldn’t be interested in what the position actually entails.

The next thing that is important is to find a career that allows you to build future career capital. This means a portfolio of what you’ve achieved so far, connections within your industry and important skills.

This means, you want to find a career that allows you to:

  • Keep your options open
  • Build skills
  • Build experience

So, for example, studying something very specific such as maritime law won’t allow you to keep your options open, and you won’t be building skills in other areas. An example of something that builds tremendous skills, experience and keeps your options open is consulting. It may not be your passion, but it will give you more opportunities to explore your passion in the future.

don't follow passion
I thought I’d be in court…

 

I’m a bit lost, can you give an example?

This can be slightly overwhelming and pretty life changing (it was for me when I read it!). So Will describes an example in his book that explains how a typical student or young adult can go about figuring out their career. I’m paraphrasing, but it’s pretty much the same story.

Peter is graduating from university with a degree in Political Science and Psychology. He doesn’t really know what he wants to do (surprise, surprise), but he knows that he wants a career that is personally satisfying and that makes a difference in the world.

  1. Look at your track record and make a list:

He originally thought he would go on to grad school to study political science because he enjoyed the research projects, but after reading this amazing career advice, he decides to widen his search. Instead of trying to figure out what career path fitted his current passions best, he drew up a list of fifteen possible options across a range of areas.

 

  1. Talk to people on the job and investigate:

Of these 15 possible options, he talked to people in those field, did his research and chose the ones he thought he would perform best based on his skills and experience. This ruled out some options: consulting would involve a lot of travel, and he’d hate that. Medicine would require a lot of retraining, which wouldn’t be worth it. He narrowed down his options to 5 possible candidates (or hypotheses):

  • Grad school
  • Law school
  • Non profit work
  • Computer programming
  • Market research

 

  1. If you care about impact, measure it

He decided he wanted to make an impact later on in life when he had the skills, and not right now since he wouldn’t have much of an impact. So that ruled out non profit work. He figured the other paths could make an impact since he would be earning more money which he could then donate to efficient charities.

 

  1. Measure how much career capital you’ll build up:

He then looked at law school, and realised that it would commit him to one path with a very specific set of skills, and he’d also end up with quite a bit of debt. Software engineering and market research would give him long term skills and he’d learn more, which he could use by working in non profits later. He would also be earning more, which means he would also be making an impact by donating his money.

Will says that Peter spent his last year in university learning about computer programming, and went on to get a job as a software developer.

don't follow passion
Peter seems satisfied

 

To summarise

Your path may not be as straightforward as Peter’s, but the framework is still extremely useful. The reason it’s important to keep your options open is that your career is a constant work in progress, and that you need to know how to constantly be readjusting and learning new things.

When you are uncertain about a career, reduce the uncertainty and investigate as much as you can (I call this exploration). This means talking to people, doing internet research and testing through student internships. Single out the options that you think are your personal best, measure the kind of impact you’ll be making and take into account the skills and career capital you’ll be building.

I believe the career advice in the book is absolutely life changing, and thanks to Will, I’ve readjusted what I want to do in the future, just by taking into consideration the skill and experience I want to be building. If you want more excellent advice and actual actionable steps to figuring out your life, I recommend, of course, reading his book Doing Good Better, and checking out the website 80,000 hours and Effective Altruism.

Isn’t it great to think that, yes, there is a clever way to build a career that I love? 😍

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Financially Mint is on another break! ☕ I will Financially Mint is on another break! ☕

I will be living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for the next few months, and then hopefully heading to Australia. 
My plans for the next year:

I'm putting the career testing theory into practice. My next career test is working for an NGO here in Kuala Lumpur. This week will be my first week. I will be working with sex trafficking survivors and I've also been asked to do some financial education presentations to help the staff.

After that the plan is to move to Melbourne, Australia, and do my next career test: consulting. If that doesn't work out I will try another career test which may be more achievable: business development in a startup. Thanks to the amazing career books that I've read, I'm pretty confident I can get an interesting job. We'll see how it rolls. 🏀

How am I funding this? I'm very excited to say that I've managed to grow my part-time freelancing income to a full-time income that can sustain me in South East Asia (I would need to work full-time in Europe). I'm calling myself a 'Freelance FinTech Writer'. Rent is crazy cheap (like 300€/month) and it's literally cheaper to eat out than cook. I'm still able to save 15% of my income. 🎉🎉 The increase in clients and pay has been thanks to all the effort I put into Financially Mint, and to some crazy cold emailing and networking in the past few months. 
After some thought, I concluded that learning mark-up language (HTML + CSS) was a more efficient use of my time than writing blog posts and working on FM... so I am now taking a break to learn some basic coding and decide what to do next.

I will still be podcasting and taking part in the FI community on Twitter and everywhere else... so I'll still be seeing you around 😉

To our success 🎉🎉
Only 30% of jobs are posted online. 🙄 Let's sa Only 30% of jobs are posted online. 🙄

Let's say you've got a list of career paths to test. You've figured out a direction, you know which sector you want to work in and you've got some cool companies in mind.

But then what? How do you get an internship in the company you really want to work for? How do you get a job in that specific NGO? How do you get them to notice you? 🤔

In FM's latest post I share a strategy that I am still testing but seems to work - copied from a book titled 'Designing your Life' by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans:

The strategy: Conducting 'Life Design' Interviews. .
A Life Design Interview is basically meeting the person that has your 'dream career' for coffee. ☕

You find someone who is working at the company you want to work for, in the sector you want to work for or simply has a position you're interested in, and you reach out to them (LinkedIn helps). You ask about their story, their position, how they got to where they are and their advice to people starting out. 
This is what I've been doing for the past month in Edinburgh, and of the 40 people I contacted, I met 8 of them for coffee, my goal to simply learn about their story.

With an added bonus: Trust. ✅

Not only did I learn stuff about working in a startup, or as a content writer or working in an NGO, but I also built a trusted connection. It's those connections that help you find the hidden jobs, the dream careers and the best opportunities.

Check out FM's latest post for a proper run down on Life Design interviews. 💪 (Last week we organised the FI Europe podcast retreat! An amazing 4 days doing speeches, masterminds, debates, boat trips, beach and surfing. Post on this coming soon 🔥)
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#financiallymint #budget #budgeting #personalfinance #savinghacks #makemoney #savemoney #money #shoestringbudget #moneyhacks #moneysavinghacks #financialeducation #financialfreedom #adulting #savingtricks #earnmoney #lifeadvice #counsel #careeradvice #retirement #investing #careerbuilding #skillbuilding #career #selfimprovement #inspiring #fieurope #lifedesign #interviews
Investing in yourself now will return bucket loads Investing in yourself now will return bucket loads in the future. 🔮

I talk a lot about this on Financially Mint - how taking the time to build career capital and explore career paths will allow you to find a career of best personal fit, which will then make you the money you need.

But it is true that I am personally at the very start of this journey, and so can't offer many examples of this working. 🤷‍♀️ Well today, this changes as I interview the Financial Gladiator, who did exactly that.

He went to university to study business in Poland, and finished his masters in Australia. In the meantime, he was doing internships, making connections, building skills and beefing up his portfolio. 
He says it himself: ' I always looked to add experience and skills to my repertoire rather than dollars' 💸.
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7 internships later in several different countries and industries and a lot of hustling, moving around and learning about what career fitted him best, FG ended up in a job that paid him a six figure salary. This kept on snowballing, and in his early thirties he hit a salary of over $500,000. .
That goes to show how much investing in yourself can return in the future.
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$500,000 annual salary doesn't need to be your goal, but it still goes to show that you'll make the bulk of your money after investing in your own career. 📈

A great interview filled with actionable career advice and FG's complete story, check out FM's latest blog post! (Edinburgh castle 🔥)
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Most of us don't know what we want to do in our tw Most of us don't know what we want to do in our twenties 🤷‍♀️. And that's absolutely normal.

But that's why we don't want to be committing to one thing - who know what you might want to do in 5 years? 🧐

Instead of committing, why not be exploring, investigating and testing career paths. But how can you do this cleverly without being a typical 'millennial-career-hopper'? By building career capital at the same time.

This means that every career test you do will help you build skills, connections and a more solid portfolio. If you have no idea where to start, here are some examples of jobs/activities that can help you build career capital:

1. Working for a growing organisation with a growing performance: this could be consulting, a startup - anywhere with a good mentor and team 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦
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2. Graduate studies - for those who want to work in research, a think tank, etc.
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3. Building a valuable and transferable skill - skills such as writing, programming, designing, data science, etc will always be useful in the future 💻
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4. Creating content - you don't always need a shiny piece of paper or a medal to show that you've done something. Creating your own thing can be just as useful.
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And much more amazing career advice... in FM's latest blog post 🤓
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(I’m running out of pictures to post so here’s one of a beautiful evening in Edinburgh) .
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#financiallymint #budget #budgeting #personalfinance #savinghacks #makemoney #savemoney #money #studentmoney #studenthacks #studentlife #shoestringbudget #moneyhacks #moneysavinghacks #financialeducation #financialfreedom #adulting #savingtricks #earnmoney #lifeadvice #counsel #careeradvice #retirement #investing #peoplemanagement #skillbuilding #career #selfimprovement #inspiring #work
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