Why the 'follow your passion' mantra can derail your career — and what to do differently

Whether you're on your first job hunt or pondering a midcareer switch, you're sure to be advised to follow your passion.

Don't. 

"Here's what nobody tells you about passion: It's killing careers before they even start," said Tom Rath, a former Gallup Research senior scientist and career advice author.

His anti-passion is a refreshing — if a bit jarring — message. 

Skip looking inside for your strengths and perfect passion, he said, and focus instead on how you can make work and life better for others, including your boss and your co-workers.

I sat down with Rath to discuss how his vision can help us avoid building a career so me-focused that it derails.

Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.

Kerry Hannon: Why should people stop looking for a wake-up call about their passion before picking a career to pursue? 

Tom Rath: Everyone wants to give new grads career advice around what they're passionate about, but there's a huge problem from the outset, because most of us pick a college, a major, enter the workforce, and our first job, and we've only seen somewhere between 3% and 5% of the kind of jobs that are out there. 

New grads are often looking out of a little pinhole at what their parents did, and maybe they've looked into where the bigger salaries eventually might be, and there's a big exposure gap.

Think about what "follow your passion" assumes. First, that you have some preexisting passion just waiting to be discovered, which most people don't. Second, that this passion will remain constant throughout your life, which it won't. And third, that passion automatically translates to fulfillment, which it almost never does. 

Passion is cotton candy gone the moment reality hits. People expect passion to carry them through difficult times, but passion typically vanishes precisely when the work gets hard.

And it's not just a tripping point for younger workers, right?

Not at all. This "follow your passion" mantra has created an entire generation of anxious, paralyzed professionals constantly wondering if they're in the wrong place. Every career move becomes an existential crisis, every bad day feels like proof you're on the wrong path, and every colleague who seems happier makes you question everything. 

Meanwhile, telling someone living paycheck to paycheck to "follow their passion" isn't just unhelpful — it's insulting.

So what should we focus on when job-hunting?

Purpose, or doing something that means something. Purpose is what you build and create in daily moments.

It's the demand side of the equation. It's what people around you need, what your team needs, what your organization needs, what your community needs, what the world needs.