The Problem With Passion

A woman I coached once dreamed of opening a pottery studio. She took a job in logistics because it gave her stability and space to care for her family. Pottery stayed in her life, as a hobby, not a business. Now that her children are older, she runs monthly workshops at weekends. She’s doing very well, is really enjoying this chapter of her life and was recently made redundant. She’s in a good position now to focus more seriously on her pottery, with space to explore it properly.

A man I worked with, a developer in his forties, had always wanted to write a novel. He knew early on that giving up paid work wasn’t an option, so he didn’t try to force it. He built a solid career and kept the writing as something of his own, not for income or deadlines, just discovery. Over the years, he’s added to it slowly, mostly during holidays and the occasional weekend. Now, he says the characters feel more real than they would have if he’d rushed it. It’s unfolding in its own time, and he’s enjoying that.

I’ve also spoken with people quietly relieved to have jobs they don’t have to think about after 5pm. Work that isn’t a calling but a container.

There’s nothing wrong with loving what you do. But it’s not a failure if you don’t.

Sometimes, the wisest move is a role that funds your life and leaves you enough to live it.

The passion narrative can be comforting, but it often carries hidden expectations. It tells us that if we haven’t found fulfilling work, we’ve done something wrong. That we need to turn our joy into income, or our purpose into a personal brand.

But behavioural research tells a more nuanced story. Fulfilment doesn’t come from passion alone. It comes from autonomy, clarity, fairness, and recovery. It comes from feeling like our work makes sense in context, not in theory.

Sometimes the most emotionally intelligent choice is to take a job that doesn’t try to be everything. One that creates room for what matters elsewhere.

And often, what keeps people stuck isn’t the reality of their work, it’s the story they’ve inherited about what work is meant to be.

Here are some of those stories worth unlearning:

• Rest is only earned

• Your job defines your value

• Saying yes is the same as being kind

• If it’s not a passion, it’s a waste

• Needing time means you’re behind

• Being good at something means you have to monetise it

• If you don’t love your work, you’ve failed

• Healing means moving on

• Help is for when things are broken

• Work should feel like purpose, not pressure

If one of these still lives in you, that’s not a flaw. That’s where the work might begin.

You don’t need to love your job.

You don’t need to brand your joy.

You don’t need to turn every interest into output.

You just need something that works for you, for now.

Until next time

You don’t need to love your job to live a full life.

You don’t need to explain your choices to anyone who hasn’t lived your context.

You get to choose what’s enough…….for now, not forever.

If this edition stirred something, a tension, a relief, a quiet knowing, let that be enough. You don’t have to act on it right away. Just notice what’s true.

Until then, I’m glad you’re here.

Daniel