Passionate about work?

Last Saturday I went for a 20 km walk on the southwestern coast of Portugal with a few people. I love the conversations we have as much as I enjoy seeing and smelling the ocean and the first blossoms (yes, I know, we are so lucky!).

Honestly, if you need to have a difficult conversation, try arranging it as a “walking meeting”, one of the best new ways of working Covid has spawned. It is easier to say something that you find difficult to say when you don't have to look the other person straight in the eye.

You are close enough for the conversation to feel personal, but you can let the words land on the wind as they will. And the experience of walking together can spill over into an inclination to move forward together in the conversation. But I digress.

We invariably end up talking about what we are passionate about. And several people have a story about being consumed by their passion. Which also made me think of the candid interviews Stromae, the successful Belgian musician who found himself unable to continue making music for a couple of years, has been giving recently.

A powerful illustration that such experiences don't only happen to people who are "in the wrong jobs": he is back with new music, and going on tour again this year. People can burn themselves out doing work they love and find meaningful, given certain conditions.

One day you might find yourself unable to continue as you are, or questioning whether you're in the right role, because you are falling out of love with your work. You might be tempted to throw it all away and follow your dreams. When you're overrun by such questions, take some time to decompress. Once you're calm enough to think, ask yourself what your dreams are, exactly.

What are you passionate about? What do you want your legacy to be? To what extent have you set yourself up to realize it? Or put differently: What makes a pursuit meaningful to you? Which elements of that do you have in your life, including work, right now?

Two things are crucially important when having this conversation with yourself. First: be as precise as you can be with the words you use to formulate your answers. Language matters, it can create clarity. And second: be honest with yourself. Nobody else gets to hear your answers.

Chances are that you've found several elements that you need to lead a meaningful life. Some of those will lie within yourself, but not all. Take one of my walking buddies, for example. Let's call her Laura. Laura stopped working as soon as she could because, in her words, she was so tired of the politics and the toxic tension in her workplace.

She had loved the work she did, but her environment poisoned the experience for her. This is an extreme example, but it highlights just how affected we can be by the actions of the people around us and the system we work within. Consider what you need from your environment in order to realize your passion, too.

When you know which elements you need to lead a meaningful life you are able to reconstruct it to look and feel more like your dream home.

You'll likely see that you already have a lot of what you need; you may just want to rejig a little bit. Maybe you want to add a load-bearing wall to your construction, or maybe you want to add more windows to let in the light. You may not need to look for a different house. Or do you?

Need help figuring out what you want your legacy to be? Let's talk.