excerpt from Get Steady: Essays at the Foundation of Sustainable High Performance
“Find your passion” is bad advice. I have yet to meet someone who is ‘passionate’ about their work on a daily basis. Athletes, actors, professionals in the music industry, all sorts of people in potentially passion-fueled environments, they too have tough days. They have days when even the fun stuff feels like a grind.
Don’t be afraid of the grind, but make sure it’s the right grind. We’ll talk about that more in a moment. But first, think about how often you’ve been told to find your passion. Or consider how many books have been written about the idea, or how many podcasts and motivational videos have been created in service of this amorphous aim. Passion. It seems like everyone is out there looking for it.
At multiple stages in life – graduating high school, graduating college, and trying to find my way professionally – I was given the “find your passion” advice. Such sentiment is always full of good intentions. But there is a fatal flaw in the approach. The fact is, passion is fleeting. Just like happiness. Or anger. Or the nostalgia one might feel in the weeks leading up to graduation.
These feelings are real, but they are hard to hold on to. The chemicals, hormones, and neural activity that create them cannot hold a stagnant position. Happy goes in waves. So does nostalgia, grief, and yes, passion.
The most romantic and passionate relationships are not fueled by feelings of romance and passion – rather, they are fueled by connection, care, and shared purpose. Rick Weissbourd, a professor at Harvard University, shares that the relationship he has with his wife, the love he has for her, is far different than the love he felt on their wedding day. It is deeper, more meaningful. They have shared experiences, navigated challenges, found joy, raised a family, and collected countless moments that are unique to the two of them. Investing in their relationship is the sort of work they have each been willing to do. There is no word to accurately encapsulate what they have.
Lasting, fulfilling relationships include partners who are committed to continually showing up for one another. The same is true for high-performing businesses and teams. Over and over, they get into the arena, together, on the same team. It is not fair to ask a school, a job, or a partner to routinely supply you with enough passionate, exciting moments for you to keep caring, to keep showing up for them.
The story you are writing for yourself should include passion, joy, and good times.
But there are more effective, more sustainable ways to discover it
than relying on your partner
or your profession
as its most regular supplier.
The path to fulfillment and high achievement is simpler than all that. It takes the abstraction of finding one’s passion out of the ether. I learned about it one day over breakfast.
Basted Eggs and Sausage
Bob Levin is a local legend. He was an All-Everything athlete at Niles West High School in the suburbs of Chicago, where he is now part of their Hall of Fame. He was a bruising linebacker and fullback at Yale. While there, he was a social activist, a Dean’s List student, started a daycare, had poetry published in the New Yorker, and dated Meryl Streep (true story).
Upon graduating, he turned down a tryout with the San Francisco 49ers to keep the daycare running and to keep learning – he completed his first round of graduate school at Harvard University, then made his way to University of Chicago for another round of advanced study while running a program for students with significant developmental challenges. Talented, tough, intelligent, and well-liked, Bob had a resume that could have taken him anywhere.
He chose to educate. He worked in the special education department at New Trier High School, mostly with young people who were having a hard time finding their way. And he coached football. He was my coach. I credit him with this advice.
When I was an early professional, we sat at a local breakfast spot one day talking about life. We made a routine of this. He always ordered basted eggs and sausage links. My interests were varied. I was looking for guidance regarding my next step and he said something that has stayed with me – advice I have passed on countless times: Chase the Work You’re Willing to do.
Startling in its simplicity, it was resonant and immediately shifted the way I was approaching my decisions. I had hoped my ‘next step’ would jump out at me. To jolt me with a feeling I could not turn my back on. Life doesn’t often work that way. Instead, I had to make a decision.
I had to point myself in a direction that had meaning, that aligned with my values. Then I had to show up, day after day, and work.
This advice plays out routinely in studies with which you might already be familiar. The now-famous “10,000-hour rule” suggests that breakthroughs occur once many, many hours of practice have accrued. I’m lukewarm on that idea. It’s hard to accrue hours when the work doesn’t feel worth it. Professor Anders Erikson provides a more research-based understanding of the concept, noting that “deliberate practice” is needed for meaningful achievement. Expertise is more than just accumulating hours of practice – the quality of practice – the purposeful approach to practice – matters as much as the quantity or total volume. I’ve yet to meet someone who has accumulated a large amount of deliberate practice in an area for which they don’t feel drawn in some innate way. Maybe we swap passion for purpose. Seek purpose rather than passion. If you’re not sure of your life’s purpose, start by noticing the work that most frequently calls out to you. And listen.
Expertise, or success however you define it, is fueled by the pursuit of “work you’re willing to do” – you must keep showing up, whether or not you feel passion, and engage deliberately over time for growth to occur.
Deliberate engagement seems to be a distinguishing factor. As you chase work you’re willing to do, keep doing it! And don’t be afraid to slow down and take stock of the good moments. What you’ll find in the haystack of routine is beauty and purpose – rather, the potential for beauty and purpose, if your eyes are open. If you’re frantically scratching for passion, odds are you’ll miss it. Ferris Bueller was right – life moves fast – disgruntled pursuit of “the next thing” or some external factor to bring you passion often causes people to gloss over what’s sitting in their lap.
Students who enter the classroom just to get through class might miss the interesting ideas coming their way. However, if you commit to the idea that history class is worth your effort, you’ll experience interesting stories and ideas. With interest piqued, you’ll be more likely to dig deeper into the content. Deeper engagement with content will lead to a fuller experience and, if you’re lucky, moments of excitement and reward.
Maybe it’s not history class. Maybe it’s simple engagement with your surroundings. When traveling, I often notice interesting architecture, flowering trees, and unique statues in public parks. Then I catch myself – we have all of this and more in Chicago. When I’m not engaged in the moment, I miss it or take it for granted. Then, with the novelty of travel, my eyes openagain. I used to call it “traveler eyes.” But it could be referred to as novelty-induced mindfulness. I’m more likely to note the novel components of my environment than the familiar ones. But when I slow down to engage with my work, when I am present, I see things differently – I catch the details. The work you’re willing to do is braided with purpose – if it weren’t, you would not (or should not) be willing to keep doing it. Slow down and take stock.
Purpose is Built
Less than 1/3 of the working population reports feeling engaged at work. That sucks. While one’s profession does not have to be their primary source of enjoyment, the average person spends more than 80,000 hours at work over their professional lifetime.
To be clear, you don’t have to love what you do. It is totally legitimate, in the pursuit of chasing work you’re willing to do, to identify that family, friends, and life outside of work is more important than what you accomplish during working hours. If you get a job that you don’t love so you can afford regular hiking trips through the mountains, great. I know many for whom the work they are willing to do includes creating a situation where they can focus on the things they care about most. Fair enough. That, then, is their work. But since so much time is spent at work, it’s worth finding meaning there, too.
Increasing the level of engagement at work – which manifests as ingenuity, effort, productivity – can always be improved. In a Harvard Business Review essay, John Coleman notes that “purpose is a thing you build, not a thing you find.” He, and many experts in the leadership development space, note that when one can find meaning in their work, they enjoy it more and perform better.
In 1962, the U.S. was in a race to the moon against Russia. President John F. Kennedy was touring NASA to check in on the project. He saw the efforts of the brilliant scientists and astrophysicists, applauded their efforts, and had good conversations with all. Including a man working with a mopthrough one of the NASA hallways. Kennedy was impressed by the intention the man seemed to be demonstrating in his less-than-glamorous role. He asked the janitor what he was up to. “Mr. President,” he replied, “I’m trying to put a man on the moon.”
Every role in a system is important to its mission. It won’t always jump out to us. It won’t necessarily rev the engine with passion. But if we look close enough, we can find it, and it will be meaningful.
Chasing meaningful work is important, but temper your expectations
for how much meaning that work will drop in your lap –
it will often be your responsibility
to find and create meaning.
Break the Cycle
This might sound familiar: drudging through the workweek, a frantic scramble to get to the weekend and some relief on Friday night, spending the first half of Saturday recovering from a night out, repeat, then another scramble on Sunday to get ready for Monday… Caught in this cycle, it might be worth reflecting on a couple of questions. Is the work you’re doing worth it? And before you ask yourself that question, are you actually engaging with the work?
Often, I find that people are only engaged on the periphery. If a salesperson wants to leave their job, I might encourage them to do a quick self-analysis. Simply, what is most important to you? They might identify that they are a “people person” and dislike cold-calling, or identify personal strengths like competitiveness, creativity, and personal values such as friendship and positive relationships. They might begin to notice that there are opportunities to bring personal strengths and values to life in their current environment. Upon review of their day-to-day engagements, they find that, with a different mindset, they can notice and lean into aligned opportunities they might have previously missed. With a new mindset, the “people person” might take a long lunch with a coworker or introduce themself to someone who sits on the other side of the office. The salesperson might shift their mindset to connecting with a potential client rather than just selling to them. There is never a suggestion to stay in a situation that is detrimental. Only to take an honest look at the situation before jumping ship.
Keep Going
“The characteristic of heroism is its persistency,” is one of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s guiding principles. Persistence requires energy, which can be exhausted without these recognitions. When Emerson noted it, he knew that the principle applied not only to one’s professional work, but to relationships, or meaningful engagement of any kind. The hero, as he describes, will not toil along a path to meaningless or unethical pursuits. The hero of your story (you) will have to select a worthy path. And keep walking.
Bring up New Trier football to anyone who played in the Bob Levin era. His legacy is entrenched in positive relationships and stories of growth. No one could tell you how much money he made or what sort of car he drove, but many will say that they loved him. We should all be so lucky – to make an impact on the world by staying in tune with the work we are willing to do, and doing it well.
