Harvard Business School professor Jon Jachimowicz has said, “When it comes to choosing a career, don’t chase after passion – focus on purpose.” He believes that you’ll find a career path that you can stay on for the long run by doing this. Let’s look at passion and purpose related to your career and see why he believes this and how it can help you find the career you’re searching for.
Defining and Understanding Passion For a Career
According to Oxford Languages, passion is a “strong and barely controllable emotion.” Wikipedia describes passion as a “feeling of intense enthusiasm…strong attraction, excitement or emotion towards a person.” The common denominator with these two definitions is the word “emotion.”
We all have emotions; it’s a fact of life, and it can be a good thing much of the time. But, the problem with emotions is that they are fleeting. You can wake up one morning feeling full of excitement and wake up feeling melancholy the following day.
The emotion of feeling passionate mirrors this inconsistency of how we can feel different from one day to the next about our profession. We can feel passionate about our new career for days, weeks, or months, yet that passion will start to ebb and flow as time passes and the honeymoon period is over.
We’ve all worked with people that have lost their passion for their work. They can be either unexcited, unmotivated, or both. As a result, the quality of their work may suffer, and they will ultimately leave their career voluntarily or not. In his book “The Picture of Dorian Gray” Oscar Wilde wrote, “I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions.” Most of us probably feel this way.
How Purpose Keeps You on Your Career Path
Used correctly, having a purpose can be powerful. It can lead us to places that we never thought we’d go and do things we never thought we could because we wanted something badly enough.
Martin Luther King had a purpose. Mahatma Gandhi had a purpose. You can probably think of a teacher in your life that went above and beyond for you because they saw their purpose as having their students receive the best education possible.
It’s the same with your career path. Why does one person stay late at the office while another takes off early because the boss is gone? The person who does the job to the best of their ability has found a purpose that keeps them on track. They may have lost some passion over the years, but they continue to excel at their job because they never lost their purpose.
A Caregiver’s Purpose
To a caregiver, helping a client or patient pick out clothes to wear for the day or helping them prepare a meal isn’t their purpose – they believe it’s their responsibility as part of their work. Their purpose is to help people stay safe at home and have their physical and emotional needs met. Put simply, their purpose is to make a difference in people’s lives.
Purpose keeps a caregiver on their career path on days they don’t feel their best; perhaps they didn’t sleep well the night before. Yet, they don’t want to disappoint either their client or their employer. It’s why they are dedicated to taking classes and participating in training as often as possible. At Senior1Care of Elkhart, we provide a career opportunity with a purpose. Our caregivers aim to deliver the highest quality care and make a difference in their patients’ lives.
If you’re looking for a career path with a purpose, check out our job opportunities or complete a job inquiry form online. We’ll show you how you can live your life with purpose while working as much or as little as you want with flexible scheduling to meet your individual needs.
