How to Sustain Passion for Your Job | Career Rocketeer - Career Search and Personal Branding Blog

[Saturday, November 14, 2009 | View Comments ]

I recently received a call from a good friend who wanted to know if I still loved my job with the same passion that I had for it when I first started work. I was all fired up three years ago; I told all and sundry and everyone else who would listen how I loved what I did and how lucky I was to be paid to do something that made me feel so good about myself; and I could hardly wait to go in to work and start a new day at the office. My friend was worried that she had lost all the passion for her job and that it was now just a routine and mundane affair. She wondered how something that was so all-consuming a few years ago could turn out to be just another thing that you do each day, with all the excitement gone out of it.

To be completely honest, I am not as gung ho about my job as I was a few years ago, but I still love it all the same and wouldn’t trade it for any other, even one which paid more. A job is like a love affair – when you find one that you love passionately, you feel very strongly about it at first. You can’t wait to get to work and you don’t mind spending most of your time on it. But as time goes by, your passion is tempered. It does not go away altogether; you only replace it with affection and tolerance. Any relationship is similar – you don’t have the same passion that you did when starting out, but you do share a solid bond that is built on love, trust and togetherness.

The key to sustaining passion for your job is the same as maintaining it in a relationship – you must work at it. And to do this, you must:

Focus on what you love about it: Just like you would focus on the positives of your relationship with your spouse or significant other to make it work and sustain your interest in each other, so too must you think more about the good aspects of your job in order to continue to do it with the same amount of passion and interest that you initially had for it.
Think of the benefits you gain: When you think about the good salary you’re being paid, the convenient work timings, your friendly colleagues and all the other aspects of your job that people consider advantages, you tend to feel better about it even though you don’t have the same passionate attitude about it as you originally did.
Achieve something: When you’re able to achieve significant successes on the job, when your work continues to bring in praise and acclaim, and when you know that you are making a positive difference to your organization, it’s easy to smile on the job and be passionate about it every day.

It’s important that you continue to love your job, because the minute you lose interest, you become less efficient and start making mistakes which could turn out to be costly in more ways than one. So work on sustaining your passion for what you do, and watch work turn out to be much more than just a job.

Guest Expert:

Donna Mitchell is responsible for the regular feature articles that you read on Paralegal Schools Online. With a passion for legal issues, politics, among a wide array of topics, she enjoys producing articles that are both fun and informative. She focuses on the paralegal community at large but tries to produce articles which are of a general enough nature that a wide variety of readers will find her articles of interest. When not on the “job” (if working from home on your own schedule can be called that), Donna is active in her community and volunteers at local animal shelters.

I recently received a call from a good friend who wanted to know if I still loved my job with the same passion that I had for it when I first started work. I was all fired up three years ago; I told all and sundry and everyone else who would listen how I loved what I did and how lucky I was to be paid to do something that made me feel so good about myself; and I could hardly wait to go in to work and start a new day at the office. My friend was worried that she had lost all the passion for her job and that it was now just a routine and mundane affair. She wondered how something that was so all-consuming a few years ago could turn out to be just another thing that you do each day, with all the excitement gone out of it.

To be completely honest, I am not as gung ho about my job as I was a few years ago, but I still love it all the same and wouldn’t trade it for any other, even one which paid more. A job is like a love affair – when you find one that you love passionately, you feel very strongly about it at first. You can’t wait to get to work and you don’t mind spending most of your time on it. But as time goes by, your passion is tempered. It does not go away altogether; you only replace it with affection and tolerance. Any relationship is similar – you don’t have the same passion that you did when starting out, but you do share a solid bond that is built on love, trust and togetherness.

The key to sustaining passion for your job is the same as maintaining it in a relationship – you must work at it. And to do this, you must:

Focus on what you love about it: Just like you would focus on the positives of your relationship with your spouse or significant other to make it work and sustain your interest in each other, so too must you think more about the good aspects of your job in order to continue to do it with the same amount of passion and interest that you initially had for it.
Think of the benefits you gain: When you think about the good salary you’re being paid, the convenient work timings, your friendly colleagues and all the other aspects of your job that people consider advantages, you tend to feel better about it even though you don’t have the same passionate attitude about it as you originally did.
Achieve something: When you’re able to achieve significant successes on the job, when your work continues to bring in praise and acclaim, and when you know that you are making a positive difference to your organization, it’s easy to smile on the job and be passionate about it every day.

It’s important that you continue to love your job, because the minute you lose interest, you become less efficient and start making mistakes which could turn out to be costly in more ways than one. So work on sustaining your passion for what you do, and watch work turn out to be much more than just a job.

Guest Expert:

Donna Mitchell is responsible for the regular feature articles that you read on Paralegal Schools Online. With a passion for legal issues, politics, among a wide array of topics, she enjoys producing articles that are both fun and informative. She focuses on the paralegal community at large but tries to produce articles which are of a general enough nature that a wide variety of readers will find her articles of interest. When not on the “job” (if working from home on your own schedule can be called that), Donna is active in her community and volunteers at local animal shelters.

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