Tristan talks about why it’s important to differentiate between your passion and gifts. We’ve all heard the career advice cliché, “follow your passion.” This is a message you might have heard from books, speeches, and even a couple of career coaches. Tristan has never really subscribed to the idea and shares a handful of reasons why.
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TRANSCRIPT
What’s going on, Living Corporate? It’s Tristan, and I want to thank you for tapping back in with me as I provide some tips and advice for professionals. Today, let’s talk about why it’s important to differentiate between your passion and gifts.
We’ve all heard the career advice cliché, “follow your passion.” This is a message you might have heard from books, speeches, and even a couple of career coaches. I’ve never really subscribed to the idea and let’s talk about a couple of reasons why.
First, I believe the advice is an incredibly privileged message that is inaccessible for many, especially Black, Brown, and Women professionals. Most of us are working because we need money to sustain ourselves and our families. We don’t have the disposable income to follow our passions, especially if they aren’t lucrative.
Second, what we’re passionate about often doesn’t remain consistent throughout our lifetime. Think about it, what you were passionate about at 10, was not what you were passionate about at 20 and what you were passionate about at 20 was not what you were passionate about at 30. We’re constantly evolving throughout every stage of our life and our passions tend to evolve with us.
Third, that advice assumes you only have one passion. We’re complex beings, many of us may not have just one passion and by asking us to select one, it doesn’t allow us to uncover passions we’ve yet to explore.
That brings me to my fourth reason, there’s an assumption you already know what your passion or passions are. To become passionate about something, we have to first be exposed to it. This requires time, education, and resources. If you haven’t found your passion yet, this advice can create stress and make you feel like something is wrong with you.
My last reason is that being passionate about something doesn’t always translate to having the skill and talent required to thrive in it. How many times have we watched a show like American Idol and seen people who are incredibly passionate about singing, but have absolutely no business being on our TVs auditioning? In order to be successful in your passion, you have to have the gifts that align with it.
Each of us has a natural core skill set, gifts, or talents. These things are inherent to who we are and tend to remain consistent throughout our lifetime. Sometimes these things can align with our passions and if so, that is amazing, but they most likely won’t and that’s okay. We should commit ourselves to identifying those gifts and allow them to guide us to the successful career path meant for us. So, make sure you remain open to the possibilities and explore what career options are available to you that fit your skill set and inherent gifts.
This tip was brought to you by Tristan of Layfield Resume Consulting. Check us out on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook @layfieldresume, or connect with me, Tristan Layfield, on LinkedIn.
