Love for work can be dangerous
Loving your job can be dangerous. Namely, as Harvard Business School professor Jon M. Jachimowicz warned, when you are passionate about something, you want to devote all your time to it, work more than you can, and this can cause burnout.
In researching this question, Jachimowicz interviewed 200 successful people – from athletes to artists to CEOs from Fortune’s 500 CEO list.
All of the aforementioned had the same experience – their aspirations sooner or later became more and more work, fueling their self-doubt and stress.
“Now they are in a new phase of life, in which they have to think about their passion as something that they have to carefully manage and take care of,” adds Jachimowicz.
His research is also of a personal nature. Namely, he moved from Great Britain to New York to study global economic inequality and devoted all his time to research at Columbia University. Passion turned into cynicism and little efficiency within a year. He felt like he was adrift without a rudder.
“No vacation will fix that, that’s for sure,” he stated.
According to a Zippia report last year, 20 percent of Americans believe they are truly passionate about their work. If you fall into that category of people and want to stay that way, Jachimowicz advised that it’s important to set clear boundaries and recognize signs of burnout early.
“People think it is more permissible, more justified to assign unpaid work tasks to more passionate workers. It is more likely that they will perceive it as an opportunity for growth and learning, as a service, because they are passionate about their work,” noted the professor.
How to avoid a stroke of passion?
It can be beneficial to go above and beyond in your work from time to time. However, if you do this often, warned Jachimowicz, you can endanger your physical and mental health, feeling as if you are overloaded.
At some point, you may start to question the work you do, notice that you are less productive, or feel emotionally drained. You may need to take a vacation, reduce your workload, or decide for yourself if this is the career for you. This can help you avoid, as Jachimowicz stated, a stroke of passion.
His advice is to find a job that allows you to use your strengths often and avoid everyday toxic situations. This advice reflects the suggestion of billionaire Mark Cuban, which refers to following the passion you have in your free time in your professional career. Cuban turned his passion for basketball, which he often played in his spare time, into a successful business, writes CNBC.
Source: Klix
Photo: Pixabay, pexels, freepik
Source: bizlife.rs
