The #1 Mistake You Should Avoid in Your Career

There are many things that can go wrong, both in our life and career. Although we do our best to make the very best decisions, based on the knowledge and awareness we have in every moment of our life, mistakes happen. And there’s nothing wrong with that. We’re humans and we are not perfect. It’s part of our nature. On the other hand, it’s always wise to learn from our mistakes; because the repetitive mistakes are the most dangerous ones. They hold us back and they pave the way for failure. As for your career, there’s one mistake that you can make, one that I already made, that you should know and avoid at any cost. Otherwise, you’re likely to face hard times in your life and career. Are you ready for it?

The worst mistake you can make in your career is not discovering and following your passion. That is, it’s crucial for you to be clear on what you’re really passionate about and make it one and the same with your career.

Yes. Being aware of and making a living at your passion is not optional or ”nice-to-have”. Your passion is a MUST for your well-being, happiness, fulfillment, and success at work and in life. And the best way to explain you this is to be 100% transparent and honest with you regarding the real costs of not doing what you love (as I and my clients experienced them) :

1. Mental Health

Do you usually feel bored, lazy, stressed, tired or empty when you work? If not, have you ever felt that way in the past? Although there are many factors that can generate stress and fatigue at work, such as overload, poor nutrition and lack of sleep, lack of meaning is also a prominent factor. When the majority of your daily tasks don’t make you feel excited and eager to jump into them, it’s at least normal for anyone to experience ”boredom”, ”laziness”, ”stress”, ”fatigue” and a sense of ”emptiness”. It feels like there’s something missing. Like you want something more; but then you say ”No, that can’t be real”.

Well, it is real and it is true! Why? Because when you’re not passionate about what you do, there is lack of meaning. So, all the above can be well explained. And when you feel bored, lazy, stressed, tired or empty within, and when you don’t acknowledge to yourself, ignore, and suppress these feelings in you, you reach the second stage of the lack of meaning:

Distractions. Whether you are consciously aware of your lack of meaning at work or not, one thing is certain: You start looking for ways to ”recharge your batteries”. I don’t imply here that taking a couple of days off is a distraction! It’s very important for you to take care of yourself in order to perform at your best. What I mean though is that the more often you feel you need to recharge your batteries, the more likely you seek to distract yourself from work and all the negative feelings that it brings you (boredom, laziness, stress, fatigue, emptiness, etc). Given this and that people react differently, depending on their personality and their circumstances, there are distractions that are harmful or harmless, at least for your mental health.

Harmless distractions include having way too many hobbies and ”running away”, both figuratively and literally! By figuratively, I mean, for example, traveling; whether it’s about trying to take as much vacation as possible or doing the tour of the world (I’ve done both, although I did my tour in Europe), traveling is a great example of an escape. You run away from the problem, pretending it’s not there, ignoring it, or hoping that you’ll find your answers on your trips. Even if you find all the answers you want by traveling, you don’t have to go to the other side of the world in order to reflect on yourself. You can do it during a walk, or even at home. And you have to do the hard, but right thing:  To look into yourself and face the truth as it really is.

And sometimes you run away literally from your problems at work because of the lack of meaning. You might start going for a run to relax. Then, you might feel that you ”don’t want to get back home to work/”normal life”/rut”, and you start running more. And more; until you end up running for hours and deciding to run a marathon (at least that was my way to escape and run away from studying Law)!

On the other hand, it’s common that there are many people who react and distract themselves in harmful ways. These can include watching TV, movies, surfing on the internet and social media or playing video games for too much time (excessive activity of the aforementioned can lead to lack of concentration and focus, insomnia, and the like). Unfortunately, this is not the worst scenario, but just the beginning. These are just the first symptoms of not doing work that really resonates with you.

Following, you reach a point where you have suppressed this emptiness that you feel, along with any other feeling, so much that you feel paralyzed, sad and helpless. Some people call it depression. Then, you feel lost and stuck, with no energy left for you to work, or even enjoy your free time. You start isolating yourself, falsely believing that ”you are a problem”, instead of acknowledging your true feelings about your work. Furthermore, you react and try to fill in ”that gap in you” by doing things that can give you instant gratification in an attempt to make a quick fix. Some people call these things addictions. From drugs and alcohol to sugar, junk food, gambling, and anything else that you feel you need to get pleasure fast. And when one realizes that all the above do not and cannot ”fill the gap”, they’re also prone to think and commit something that even themselves didn’t expect to think: suicide.

This is the ultimate consequence of lack of meaning at work, and not doing what you love for a long period of time.

2. Time

Time is our most valuable currency. Because you cannot do anything, including ”buying”, to bring back your time. Nothing can bring your time back, including money. Once it’s gone, it’s gone forever. And when you are not clear on your passion, when you don’t know what you truly love, you just look for a job. As long as you need to pay the bills as soon as possible, there’s nothing wrong with that. Nevertheless, if you want to invest in your career in the long term, for you to have more meaning, fulfillment, impact and profits, then you need to start your job search with clarity. That is, being aware of your passion.

When you are not aware of it, even if you do land a new job, you’ll be jumping to another one soon. Because there will be no much of meaning in this either. And you’ll keep on changing jobs and careers again and again. Although the more experience you get, the more you increase your awareness on what you like and don’t like, you still ”scratch the surface” of the core of what you truly love, your passion. That’s what most people do. They jump from one job to another, without having a solid map and compass (their passion) on their quest for a better career; a career with more meaning, impact, freedom, fulfillment and profits. They try to discover their passion though trial and error. What’s bad about that?

a) It takes too much time for you to finally discover your passion – could be from a few years to decades to retirement!

b) There is no guarantee for you or anyone else that you’ll discover your passion during your lifetime. Maybe, if you’re lucky.

3. No Fun

Yes, you can be productive at work, do a great job, and have fun at the the same time! That’s exactly the case when you know and follow your passion. Work stops feeling like ”work”, an obligation or a ”to-do” thing, and starts being fun! Yes, the maxim ”When you do work you love, you’ll never have to work a day in your life” is true. On the contrary, when you don’t do what you love, this feeling of ”obligation” resembles more of a form of modern slavery.

4. No Personal Growth

If you don’t grow, you ”die”, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. By ”growing”, I mean reaching your full potential as a person and a professional, along with maximizing your creativity. Yes. Your passion plays a key role in your personal and professional development. Because it’s a pure manifestation of your best self. It also helps you develop and boost your creativity. Why? Because when you’re passionate about what you do, work is fun; and when you have fun, you’re relaxed enough to get inspired and create.

This way, you also enhance your creative problem-solving skills, coming up with better solutions, faster and in a more effective way. This benefit, along with your natural hunger to go for the extra mile at work (because it’s fun, hence you lose track of time), make you deliver inconceivable value to anyone you serve and work with; whether it’s your employer, colleagues, supervisor, business partners, employees, investors, or customers. So, when you don’t know your passion, you deprive yourself of the great opportunity to reach your full potential and add inconceivable value to others. This brings us to the next cost of lacking clarity:

5. Lack of Impact

When you add inconceivable value to others, you make a greater impact. In other words, you support the people you serve in a much better and more effective way or/and you get the chance to expand this positive impact to even more people! Without your passion, you’ll lack the creativity, inspiration and hunger to add inconceivable value to others. Consequently, you’ll make a much less impact in the world than the one you are truly capable of. And remember: It’s your duty and personal responsibility to make the impact you can really make in the world. Besides that, when you don’t make the impact you could make, you also deprive yourself of:

6. Money

When you don’t know your passion, you don’t make the impact you could make, hence you miss the opportunity to reap the financial rewards pertain to it. Because the more people you serve, and the better you serve them, the greater your value in the market becomes (your net worth). That does not mean that you’ll reap these benefits right at the very beginning. On the contrary, in a career transition it’s more likely for you to not have the benefits and income you used to have in your previous job/career. Turning your passion into your dream career does require time, but it’s really worth in the long term. Because maximizing your potential, by discovering and following your passion, maximizes your ”money potential”. That is, the potential earnings you will have thanks to a greater value and impact you’ll be making through your passion.

Furthermore, if you don’t get clarity on your passion, not only will you not earn more, but you’ll also lose money. Why? Because career change has also its costs. You might need a new training to upgrade your skills or learn new ones for the new job you want to land; or you might need to rely on your savings until you find another job should you quit or be laid off. In any case, there’s a price to pay every time you decide to go for a new job or career. That’s why you do need to minimize your risk. And the first step to do this is to be crystal clear on your passion. The less clarity you have, the more likely for you to not be satisfied in your new job, and the more times you’ll look for a new job or a career change; and the higher the costs of your career transitions will be. So, being clear on your passion will also save you lots of money in advance.

7. Lack of Focus

Focus is power. This is even more true when it has to do with your job search. You have a limited amount of time and energy in your day, so make sure you make the most of it. So, focus shifts your energy to the right direction. And to get focus, you need again clarity. Otherwise, you’ll be wasting your time and energy in roles that aren’t a great fit, which reduces your probabilities to get the job significantly.

8. Work-Life Imbalance

When you don’t do what you truly love, it’s hard to ”switch off” your negative feelings once work ends for the day and when you get back home. This is a tremendous problem. Because you bring your low and negative emotional state to your personal life, whether it’s about your personal free time or your relationship with your family, friends and intimate partner. This happens because, whether you want to admit it or not, both your personal and professional life are strongly interwoven; to an extent that there is no real room for differentiation. Why? Because we, as humans, are whole. We are not machines, able to turn the switch on/off anytime we want. And it’s ok! It’s part of who we are. For this reason, it’s crucial for you to realize the value of finding and following your passion in your personal life and relationships. What is the value? Well, passion changes everything. It is your excitement, your enthusiasm, your passion that you bring back home; not the stress, the boredom, the fatigue, or the emptiness.

9. No Adaptability

We live in unprecedented times. The COVID-19 pandemic, besides its tremendous social and economic consequences, is also going to accelerate the (existing) exponential growth of technology and AI. What does that mean? That approximately 60% of the current jobs in the market will change drastically or won’t even exist in the next 10-15 years. So, what are you going to do? Are you going to worry about and blame AI, technology and the coronavirus? Well, you can, but it won’t change anything. Or, are you going to find ways to adapt in the new circumstances? If so, how?

By finding your passion. Why? Because passion is not a job. Passion is the specific activity/activities that put you in a state of ”flow” while serving something greater than yourself, a purpose. It’s an activity that inspires you and stimulates your best self. On the other hand, a job is just a way to capitalize on your passion. For example, my passion is to inspire professionals to discover their passion and turn it into a career with more meaning, fulfillment and impact! I can capitalize on it in many ways, such as:

1. Get a full-time role as a Career Coach
2. Run my own career coaching business and do 1-1 coaching
3. Group coaching
4. Be an author by writing books about it (as my very first one on finding your passion)
5. Public speaking as a professional speaker
6. Contractor to support organizations to put the right people in the right place

And these are just a few ways to capitalize on my passion. So, passion is not a job. Your passion is your ideal career map. It’s specific enough to give you the clarity, focus and direction you need in your career, as well as broad enough to give you flexibility. By flexibility, I mean your ability to adapt to any market, economy and circumstances. How do you adapt? You find ways to capitalize on your passion. And the way you do that is by covering a human need through your passion. Because when you do cover a human need, you add value to others, hence you get paid. Yes. That means that the very existence of a job is based on serving and adding value to other people and the society you live in. That’s why some jobs and industries will become extinct and new ones will emerge. And this was, is and will continue happening. Because, as long as there are humans, there will always be human needs to be fulfilled.

So, jobs do not exist for you to get paid. Otherwise, they would have been charities. This also means that you don’t get paid for your time. You get paid for the value you provide to others in a specific time period. It’s the skills, knowledge, expertise, the ”know-how” you offer the reason you make a living. Not your time itself (Otherwise, you could just go to your office, sit on your chair, do nothing all day, every day, and get paid for that!).

Your passion will give you the unique opportunity to adapt yourself in any circumstances, by focusing on and covering at least one human need. Without it, you’ll keep on worrying about the future of your career.

10. Not Making the Most of Your Life

Last but not least, remember that we spend at least half of our active life at work (1/3 if we include sleep). And the emotions we experience at work have a big impact on the other half of our active life – our personal life. With the average person spending 90.000 hours at work in their lifetime, it’s not difficult for you to ask yourself this question:

Do I want to make the most of my life ?

If so, what can you do to make the most of it? Well, many things. And one of them is to make the most of your work, the 90.000 hours, the half of your life; If you don’t discover and follow your passion, you’ll live, at the very best, a ”half-life”. Whether you decide a ”half-life” or a career with much more meaning, fulfillment, and impact, it’s really on you. I just felt the need to give you a perspective to consider for the sake of a greater life and career!

And if you decide to live a full-life, full of passion, both in and out of work, then your next step is to discover your passion! How? Check my previous article on ”How To Find Your Dream Career”.

Enjoy your journey!

Feel free to connect with me on Facebook and LinkedIn by visiting my personal site JimPanos360.com