Don't follow your passion.

Two of the worst career advices ever given: ‘Just find a job’ and ‘Follow your passion’.

Both are lazy advices given by lazy people for other lazy people.

The first one, which most of the world seems to be following, is to become a mediocre cog in a mediocre system, as long as you are getting sufficient salary at the end of the month.

This advice is focussed on the outcome, an outcome that becomes stale very soon, and it ignores the daily suffering accompanied by doing something you are not very well equipped to do.

The second one, ‘Follow your passion’ is an all-encompassing fairy tale, whereby just following your passion will solve all your problems in an instant.

In most cases, it won’t even be able to pay the rent. Most of the people who start on this path, realise this and rush back to being a cog.

Then, there is a not-so-lazy option. Which is to identify your strengths and understand what kind of value you can create and for whom.

Your passion does not matter. The amount of money you want, or you think you deserve, do not matter. What your relatives think of your job does not matter.

Instead what matters is:

One, what do you do on a daily basis? Does that energise you or drain you? Are you a people person who is staring at excel all day? Or a system person been forced to manage people? What is the best outlet for you for creating value?

Second, where are your people? Who are the people you thrive with? What are their characteristics? Where can you find them?

Being stuck in the wrong culture may be the most reliable way of being miserable. Are you an innovator stuck in a bureaucracy? Are you a teacher stuck in a corporate job?

Third, what kind of impact do you want to create? What moves you? It does not need to be social. It could be optimising a value chain for an e-commerce platform or it could be teaching kids in an under-privileged school.

From selling Louis Vuitton bags to providing clothes to those who do not have clothes, whether we want it or not, there is an impact that we are creating.

Even getting one thing right out of the above three can significantly change the way you look at your workday. Changing all three can make you stop hating Mondays.

What about the money, you ask? Once you are in a place, where you are doing the right kind of things, with the right kinds of people, creating the right kind of impact, right for you, you would unleash your potential of earning, which would run circles around your being-a-cog job.