By Rachel Puryear

One popular mantra you’ll hear from gurus, coaches, and well-meaning friends and family alike is an enthusiastic “follow your passion!” when it comes to choosing careers and other life paths.

It’s well-intended advice, and the underlying assumption is that doing so will avoid the toil and drudgery that most people associate with their work lives. It’s become a widely accepted belief – even though that underlying assumption is incorrect.

However, I’m here to disagree with that mantra, and suggest that people seriously reconsider “following their passion”. Or, at least give a lot more thought to a life path beyond just whatever you’re passionate about.

You may be gravely disappointed by following your passion, and be a lot happier choosing instead something that meets more of your needs on the whole, and that you can live with.

Here are a few reasons why:

It Might Be a Better Way to Lose Your Passion Than to Gain a Successful Career

For every person who’s turned their true passion into a successful, satisfying, lucrative career; there are others – maybe several others – who followed their passion and not only didn’t make their dreams come true, but also lost their passion – and maybe even suffered some significant financial setbacks in the process.

Competition and over-saturation in sought-after careers, high barriers to entry, poor guidance and even outright scams, are all factors in how this unintended result can happen. But so is the next point – the dreaded business side of every highly sought-after industry.

You’ll Probably Hate the Business Side of Things

When people think about their passion, they tend to only envision themselves doing what they want to do – whether that’s performing on a stage or in front of a camera, teaching and inspiring students, healing people as a doctor or fighting for justice for underdogs as a lawyer, turning challenged lives around as a social worker, and so forth.

What they often don’t consider is the industries and realities that come along with such careers – that is, the business side.

They don’t imagine the notoriously toxic and demoralizing cultures prevalent in all these industries, and so many more popular ones. They don’t plan to hustle hard for many years before maybe having some success.

With helping professions, they don’t prepare for the burnout and depression that easily accompanies not being able to save the world or do nearly as much good as they had hoped; or the reality that their colleagues will not all be as empathetic and honorable as they thought.

In pursuing a passion, it’s not enough to just like doing the thing itself. One must also be able to accept everything else that naturally comes along with it. A crappy business side isn’t necessarily a reason not to pursue a profession, even though you will probably hate that aspect. But it’s necessary to first know what you’re getting into.

Passions Can Change Over Time

It’s an insanity we all just accept, that people in their late teens are early twenties are expected to make decisions – and major commitments of time and money – to careers that could go on for several decades.

People’s brains aren’t even fully developed at this age, and few of us really know ourselves and what we want well at this stage of our lives.

However, just because something is one’s passion now, doesn’t necessarily mean it will still be a few life stages from now, or even a few years from now.

This reason in itself isn’t necessarily a reason to avoid a particular career path entirely. However, a career path needs to offer more than just passion in order to sustain in for the long term.

For a young person, consider some of the following points: Will your career choice help you become more financially comfortable over time, or impoverish you? You will get tired of struggling, if you aren’t already. Will it give you more options in finding a good partner, or fewer? Will it make it easier for you to start a family (if that’s what you might want), or more difficult? Will it leave room for hobbies, a social life, and rest – which will become even more important to you as you get older? Passion is great, but it won’t substitute for these things.

Which also brings us to the next point.

Loving it Doesn’t Make it Financially Viable

Money shouldn’t be the sole consideration in a career, just like passion alone won’t sustain you through hard times indefinitely. At the same time, it does need to be one of multiple important considerations.

You don’t need to be rich to be happy. However, life is so much easier when you have enough money to be comfortable and secure, and you don’t have to struggle all the time and constantly stress out about how you’ll provide for your family and meet your financial obligations. It’s also a lot more enjoyable when you don’t have to work long hours, and you have both time and money for things you enjoy doing and value.

There’s no need to feel guilty about considering the financial aspect of a career, either. Self-preservation is totally okay.

If pursuing your passion means incurring a lot of debt, making low wages for the long term without serious prospects for making decent money over time, and little job security; think long and hard about how difficult a life you’re willing to have, and whether or not it’s worth it to pursue this passion.

There Are Exceptions, but They’re Not Typical

Sure, there are people who do make a satisfying – and even lucrative – career out of their passion. They’re often the exception, though, rather than the rule.

People who do follow their passions and make it work, though, take more than just passion into account, and have other things in place, too.

In order to make their career path viable; they usually have realistic expectations of what it takes to succeed in the industry, support – and connections – that they need to get ahead, and also and are very good at what they do. They of course have passion, but they also have a lot else that they need.

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Thank you, dear readers, for reading, following, and sharing. Here’s to taking a realistic view of a career change before making the plunge.

Check out my other blog, too – World Class Hugs, at https://worldclasshugs.com. It’s about celebrating empathic and HSS/HSP people, balanced versus toxic relationships, loving spirituality and spiritualism without religious dogma, and visiting gorgeous natural places.

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