No passion for my job - affecting my motivation [closed]

Question

I currently work in Finance and am a chartered accountant. I'm still relatively young but am starting to realize I just don't have much passion for what I do. I don't wake up in the morning looking forward to getting things done. It just all feels a bit dull most of the time. I look forward to the things I do after work and this just feels like it's getting in my way.

How do you guys deal with this situation? I'm sure it happens to everyone sometimes but when you always feel like that, I think it could be a real issue as my motivation will affect the quality of my work.

Answer 1

Well there's a different between no passion and lack of interest.

I work as a IT security consultant. I can't say I'm passionate about my job, but I still find it interesting. I don't go to work just thinking about the moment I will be able to leave, but once I leave the office I have other things on my mind and don't spend all my time on "geek stuff" (not judging anyone here, english isn't my native language so I can't find a more appropriate word).

What I mean is this : your job doesn't have to be a passion for you to be efficient. If you just can find an interest in it there is no reason why your productivity should suffer from it. However, if you just find it boring and absolutely not interesting, you have two options :

• suck it up, think really hard about your paycheck and do your job
• start looking for a new employment area

I for one would go for the second option. We spend a significant portion of our time working, and the odds are working 40h per week on something you don't like will just make you miserable. But this is just my opinion. At the end of the day, it's up to you to find the right balance between the interest you have in your job, the money you make, and other pros and cons (free time, people you work with etc).

Answer 2

I have zero passion for what I do, but I do it as competently and as effectively as if if I did have passion. I find a downside to passion as I have had to clean up or pick up after those who lost their passion. You're a professional if you don't let passion affect the quality of your work.

I can't afford to have subordinates or colleagues whom I can count on to finish their projects in a satisfactory manner - as long as they feel good, that is. I don't want to go around and keep asking "are you happy?" as a necessary way of keeping track whether the projects are going to be satisfactorily complete on time - that's would be a hostage situation, with me as the hostage :)

Your work is certainly not exciting to me but I recognize it as necessary. You need to get to the bottom as to why you are unhappy. Several possibilities:

1. Your work would be just as necessary to you but have a much greater meaning to you if you were performing it in a different context, say a children's hospital or a corporation that's pushing the boundaries of high tech.

2. Your work would be just as passionless to you no matter what setting you are performing your work in.

3. Your work would be exciting to you if you were able to perform other activities in your discipline that you are not performing at the moment.

4. No one can find their job interesting all the time and no job is exciting all the time. Only you can determine whether you are in a temporary funk and most likely, you'll be able make that determination only in hindsight.

The list of possibilities why you are unhappy is, of course, not exclusive and each possibility calls for a distinct adaptive response.

Answer 3

First, it is unprofessional in the extreme to let your lack of passion affect your work. You are being paid for your job, you owe them the work, period.

Passion is like romantic love, it is all amazing at the beginning and the world is wonderful. But no one can maintain that over time. But you shouldn't divorce your spouse because things have gotten a bit routine and your job is the same way. It is the norm for there to be great passion at the beginning which eases with time. Grand emotions are, in the end, unsustainable.

How you cope is by first stop thinking that passion is necessary all the time. By making passion a big criteria for work, you are setting yourself up for failure as grand passions always ease up.

Not there is a differnce between not being passionate about your job (which often leads to having a more balanced life which is a good thing) and hating your job to the point where you would rather go to the hospital than show up one more day.

Sure there are times when it is time to move on to something else. But the point I want to make is that the grass isn't alawys greener on the other side. All jobs have boring aspects, all companies have people you would rather not have to work with, everybody gets tired of working relentlessly with no summer vacation! A new job will only fix this temporarily if all you have is a loss of passion.

However, if yo have reached the "I can't stand it here one more minute" phase, then yes search for a new job. Train for a new profession if that is where you want to go or just find a different workplace where the same job might make you happy with a new group of people. Try to analyse what woudl make you happier at work before you start searching or retraining. You don't want to end up in a worse place or with more student debt to train for another profession you don't really like doing. In the meantime, keep doing your job to the highest standard. Make it a point of pride to do so.