What if you Suck at your Passion? Don't just "Follow your Bliss"

in #career7 years ago (edited)

Here's a short post I wrote for LinkedIn a few years back, thought it might be useful here. Link to the original is below.

People love to say "follow your bliss", or "follow your passion" when giving career advice.

But passion is only one part of the equation. If you suck at it, won't stick with it, or it doesn't help anyone else in any way, then you'll never have a fulfilling career with it. My career formula is:

Passion x Aptitude x Commitment x Profitability

So it's a question of not just "What are you passionate about?", but also,
What do you have a natural demonstrated aptitude for?
What are you committed to manifesting or improving?
How financially profitable is it?

And because these are all equally weighted multipliers, you can evaluate different opportunities against each other wholistically, no matter how different they are. Heck, even if you suck at something, if you are 1000% passionate about and committed to it, eventually you'll get good enough that it will be profitable.

Give it a shot and let me know what you think!

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141015195641-5551133-what-if-you-suck-at-your-passion