Are our interests’ part of our inherent “nature” or are they “nurtured” and developed? This was the question of some research studies conducted by O’Keefe, Dweck, and Walton (2018).
Their research sheds light on some of the dangers and myths of “finding your career passion”.
They examined whether our interests in general are “fixed” and something to be discovered or found, which seems to be the implicit theory or assumption that our culture holds.
In the context of our careers, we are often told to “Discover your Passion,” or “Find your Passion”. After all, doesn’t everyone want to discover their passion? It sounds so alluring, indeed!
The researchers studied a population of university students and examined their perspectives on whether interests are something that are grown and developed over time versus static.
The findings of their research may have important implications to a person’s career interests. If so, perhaps there are some dangers and myths to trying to “find” or “discover” our career passion.
Perhaps this is why in the field of career counselling and psychology, we use the term “career development” as it implies that we need to explore, work on, and develop our career passions, rather than simply discovering them or having them fall on our lap after taking a career interest inventory.
Finding your Career Passion – Are there Any Dangers or Myths to this Assumption?
1. Based on O’Keefe, Dweck, and Walton’s (2018) research, when we understand our interests as a fixed attribute – something that pre-exists and doesn’t change, we may become less likely to venture out, and to explore and pursue new interests.
2. Second, if we perceive our career interests and passions as being contained to a set number of interests, rather than several different areas of interest, we may unconsciously put a ceiling on our interests and limit our own career growth in general.
3. With such a fixed mindset we may falsely believe that we should always be motivated and inspired by our career passion. After all, if you’re passionate about something, then why wouldn’t you be excited about your career and work all the time? Of course, this is a myth, and one that I’ve written about years ago in my book Goal Setting Myths and Traps.
4. Another potential myth behind “finding” your passion is this: If you’re passionate about your work, then your work should come easy to you. In other words, there should be no complaining when you do what you love, right? As the myth states, when you do what you love, it doesn’t feel like work. Again, this is another trap we can easily fall into.
With this type of fixed mindset regarding our interests, – when obstacles or difficulties come up around pursuing our passion we might begin to believe that we haven’t found our career passion or that our passion simply isn’t meant to be. After all, something that we’re passionate about should always be fun and not difficult, right? Wrong!
For example, the researchers stated that: “Urging people to find their passion may lead them to put all their eggs in one basket but then to drop that basket when it becomes difficult to carry (p. 1653).
5. Those who have a more fixed mindset about the nature of their career interests may be more likely to give up in the face of adversity; and they might make it mean – “this isn’t really meant for me.”
After encountering a difficulty, their level of interest in that particular job or career path may drop off drastically. In other words, a person may become less committed.
Benefits of Applying a Growth Mindset to Your Career Passion
There may be many benefits to applying the growth mindset to your career and to viewing your career passion and interests as something that you can develop over time rather than something that is to be “found” (O’Keefe, Dweck, and Walton, 2018).
1. Knowing that developing your career passion may require ‘work clothes’:
When we apply a growth mindset to our careers, we may be more likely to see the pursuing of our passion from a more realistic lens. That is, we may realize that pursuing our interests, whether it be at work or in our personal lives, can require a lot of hard work, frustrations, plateaus and difficulties. This is normal.
The authors offer an interesting comparison that is similar to dating. If we search for our perfect soul mate, we might easily get discouraged when we don’t find that perfect person, or, when disagreements arise, or when we become hurt.
We might then toss in the towel and part ways. When we adopt the perspective that relationships need work, and that they are prone to ruptures and repairs, we might be more likely to invest the necessary effort rather than leaving.
Similar to our career interests, if they need to be developed, grown, and nurtured, then it may also normalize the idea that pursuing our career passion may be challenging and require hard work at times. It also implies that it’s normal to run into barriers or difficulties.
2. Keeping yourself open to new career opportunities: If you don’t explore newer interests because of a fixed mindset, then you might miss out on potential opportunities to develop your interests and to expand your overall career.
For instance you might pass up on a new project at work, or you might pass up on taking courses outside your common areas of interest.
3. Exploring different areas of Career Interest: Just because you have one area of career interests that are strongly developed, it doesn’t mean that you can’t develop other areas of interest. One area of interest need not take away from the others.
The researchers also noted that having a fixed mindset with your interests isn’t always a detriment. In fact, holding such a fixed mindset might also keep you focused on what you’re most interested in, and less prone to external distractions.
It might be that when a person is still exploring and developing their career interests, especially early on in their career, that they need to keep an open stance on exploring new areas of interest.
Likewise, if a person is dissatisfied in their work and is seeking a career change – this too may be a time to consider developing your career interests.
On the flip side however, a person might have so many career interests that they need to focus on refining and prioritizing those interests.
Secondly, a person may have developed their interests in such a way that they are looking for ways to specialize and develop their expertise more specifically which is also a very different headspace to be in.
Where you do you fall on this continuum with your career interests? Are you to needing to explore and expand your interests? Or are you needing to make sense of your many interests and refine them?
Career development is an iterative process – often we explore, develop and expand our interests, and then we focus in on something to make a decision and to gain experience.
Author: Dr. Allison Foskett, Registered Counselling Psychologist, Edmonton, Alberta
To learn more about my background and training as a registered psychologist, please visit my About Me page
If you’re interested in exploring career counselling services, career assessments, or individual therapy for a range of mental health concerns, please contact me for a free 15-minute phone consultation.
