Why ‘follow your passion’ is bad career advice

Whether it’s from a loved one or a commencement address speaker, new graduates often are told “Follow your passion.” They say, “Find a job that you’re passionate about; you’ll never work a day in your life.”

While it’s good in theory, John W. Mitchell, author of Fire Your Hiring Habits: Building an Environment That Attracts Top Talent in Today’s Workforce, says this advice is “crap.”

“Most people have more than one passion,” he says. “Knowing which to follow can be difficult. From the other perspective, a lot of new graduates may not even be able to answer the question, ‘What are you passionate about?’ Many of them are taking six to eight years to graduate because they don’t know what they want to do. If you don’t know what you want to do, how can you know what your passion is?”

In addition to not being specific enough to be helpful, following your passion could doom you to fail. Passion does not equal competence. As a result, it’s possible that your passion for something would limit your career opportunities.

“Let’s say that I’m passionate about gymnastics,” Mitchell says. “Well, I’m 6-foot-3; doing gymnastics probably isn’t a good idea, even if I’m passionate about it.”

Making your passion your job can also impact how you feel about it. Often, passions fuel you because they’re a break from your everyday work. For example, you may love to paint or tinker with cars.

“If suddenly [this passion] becomes the only way that you can make money, it can become drudgery and feel more like work than passion,” Mitchell says.

Following your passion also puts you at risk of burnout. “When you’re in a job you’re passionate about, you can get exploited,” Mitchell says. “You may be tempted to work 20 hours a day. The employer is going to say, ‘Hey, this is fantastic. I’m paying dirt for this, and they’re working like crazy.’”

It can be hard to scale back once you’ve set a precedent, and you may find yourself discouraged and thinking of quitting.

Skills Are Better

Instead of following your passion, Mitchell recommends following your competence. You’re more likely to be successful in your career when you have the right skills.

If you’re not sure where your competence lies, Mitchell suggests looking at your coursework. “If you had to spend all night trying to figure out math problems, you’re probably not very good in that area,” he says. “But if you have a class where you were able to do your homework without much stress, then it’s probably an area where you excel.”

You can also identify your competence through trial and error. “This isn’t the 1940s,” he says. “You don’t have to pick a career you stay in for the rest of your life. Go try something. If you don’t like it, try something else.”

Once you know your competence, put time and effort into honing and expanding your craft. Go on a pursuit of excellence. “If you are good at math, you might develop enhancements, like figuring out the mathematical models of AI,” Mitchell suggests. “Look for ways to get better.”

Then, look for opportunities to apply that excellence. “When you’re doing something that you’re competent at that is valued by somebody else, they’ll pay obscene amounts of money for excellence,” he says. “Having people value you is self-fulfilling, and it’ll pay the bills.”

Following your competence instead of passion also takes the pressure off your career, Mitchell says, noting, “If somebody says, ‘Go follow your passion’ and you don’t have a passion, you can sit there and worry for months. Instead, find something you’re good at. You won’t need to worry about it as much and you’ll increase your likelihood of success.”