Why "follow your passion" is bad advice

Career blog

"Follow your passion" sounds like good advice until you actually try to use it. Most people don't have one clear passion sitting around waiting to be followed — they have a handful of loose interests, none of which come with a job description attached.

Here's a more useful question: what kind of problems do you like solving? Not what do you love, but what keeps your attention when things get hard. Passion is a feeling, and feelings are unreliable career compasses — they show up after competence and momentum, not before.

Instead of hunting for a passion, look at your last few years of work. Which parts did you keep choosing, even when nobody was watching? That pattern is worth more than any single moment of inspiration.