Career Tools

Working With Passion

passionFor many, an occupation is just that, a job and a paycheck.  The majority of the population will have to work 40+ years, for some even longer, before the possibility of retirement is an option.  Winning the lottery, or receiving an inheritance are pipe dreams for those looking to get out of a dead end job. But for those who have found occupations that offer meaningful challenges, opportunities for growth and play up an individual’s passions, counting the days until a possible retirement seem far less important.

“Few people discover the work they love,” writes Lance Secretan in his book, Inspirational Leadership.

Many professionals have long since faced the facts that finding a meaningful position is a dream long since given up.  These individuals measure each day by a clock hanging on the wall and count the hours, minutes, seconds, until the work day is over.  Finding passion in one’s occupation can be difficult, but not impossible.

Kenneth A. Tucker, Coauthor of Animals, Inc, states:

Simply put, passion, or its absence, isn’t just a philosophical or psychological matter — it’s a business problem, too. Far too many companies lack employees who are passionate about their work, and they flounder, or just get by.

But some companies instill passion and thrive as a result. Ask Herb Kelleher, founder and chairman of Southwest Airlines, and he will tell you that passion means money in the bank for his company. Fly on one of Southwest’s flights, and you soon come to know why their slogan, “the airline that love built,” articulates the passion of their employees. “At far too many companies, when you come into the office you put on a mask,” writes Kelleher in Leader to Leader. “We try not to hire people who are humorless, self-centered, or complacent, so when they come to work, we want them, not their corporate clones. They are what makes us different, and in most enterprises, different is better.”

Passion helps to engage an organization. When people discover the work that they love, work becomes more than a job — it becomes a unique calling, a life’s mission. People with passion for their work engage each other and their customers.

Kaihan Krippendorff of Fast Company provides 14 tips to finding passion and purpose for work:

1. Build your portfolio

2. Write three lists

3. Recall flow states

4. Explore the “four aims of life”

5. Ask yourself
Deepak Chopra suggests you meditate for a few minutes to reach a state of deep relaxation, then, “Ask what your heart deeply desires and yearns to express and listen quietly for an honest response … don’t fixate on one response.”

6. Create space

7. Write until you cry
Steve Pavlina suggests you write down the answer to “What is my true purpose in life?” Then, write another answer. Keep writing until you cry. “This is your purpose.”

8. Envision your funeral

9. Answer 15 questions
The people at offer a list of 15 questions you can ask to help connect with your purpose, including “What makes you smile?” and “If you had to teach something, what would you teach?”
10. Write your “ideal self”

You are writing a novel or play with your “ideal self” as the lead character: who is he/she? Mine is the bestselling author, the inventor, the “guru” who fills a stadium.

11. Find and seek out your fears
Pressfield also writes, “If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends) ‘Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?’ chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.” So ask yourself, “What is it I’m scared to death of? Where am I today? Is my comfort zone getting very uncomfortable?”

Untitled-112. Write the “moments”

“The answer is that your story doesn’t have to be dramatic, only real,” said Slap. “True epiphanies often come from a series of small moments” that only after reflecting on them you realize formed your values and passions. What moments do you most remember for your past?

13. Watch TEDTalks

14. Remove the cause
The Indian guru Jiddu Krishnamurti distinguishes false passion from passion without a cause. “Our passion is for something: for music, for painting, for literature, for a country, for a woman or a man; it is always the effect of a cause [but] when passion has a cause, there is attachment, and attachment is the beginning of sorrow.” So ask yourself, “If I had nothing to prove, nothing to achieve, if I had all that I needed, what would I love doing?”

Click here to download a workbook detailing these 14 exercises, or

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