Don’t Freak Out, But You Are Probably Not Passionate About What You Do
There’s a solution. Do you want it?
I work at an advertising agency that does a lot of B2B work for high-precision manufacturing clients. Today, I sat down with the Director of Manufacturing at an elite automotive parts production facility.
This man is nearing 30 years at the company. Every day, he shows up at 7 a.m. and leaves 12 hours later. And when he gets home, when it’s finally time to unwind after all his hard work…
…he does not unwind. He remodels his house, works on his cars and simply does not shut off. As I drove back to the office after speaking with him, I realized that’s an apt way to describe a personified version of passion.
passion (n): an intense desire or enthusiasm for something.
Put in terms of what you and I do for a living, passion is doing work-related activities when you’re not at work. For the man I talked to, this means building things and working with his hands. For me, it means writing ads I’m not getting paid for. Writing screenplays, novels, Medium articles. Getting better at wordsmithing every chance I get.
Except I don’t do that. My PS4 is a valued member of my family. I watch TV and movies with my wife on a daily basis. The vast majority of the free time I have is spent consuming, not creating. And I like it that way.
It’s rather amusing to me how strongly my body fights against this recipe for complete vocational fulfillment. The act of creating is beautiful and oh so satisfying, yet there are dark forces that whisper to me, every time I have the itch to create, “No. What you’re thinking of making is not worth it. Sit down. Have a beer. Let’s see what’s on.”
Most of the time, that voice wins.
If you’re like me, you love your job and you’re pretty good at it. But in your free time, you do other things because you want some space. That’s a good start on the road to happiness.
But if you want to achieve greatness, if you want to be the best you can possibly be at what you do, here’s the recipe. You might already know it. Simply do it all the time, especially when you’re not being paid for it. That’s all there is to it.
There’s the formula. But there’s also a ton of great stuff on TV right now. So the question is, are you sure you don’t just want to sit down and have a beer?
