Sunday Scaries: Find your passion or fail

You've come back to work after the long weekend or maybe you've even got a day or to extra leave left - you cheeky devil you - and you're feeling a bit down about going back to work.

A common form of Sunday scaries is that feeling of "meh" when it comes to your work. The job and/or compant is ok but it's not exactly what you dreamed of when you were a kid.

So you do what everyone does, head to the career knowledge epicentre; LinkedIn. You search "how to be happy in my career" and you get the following results:

The experts are all saying the same thing; find your passion and make that your work and happiness is guaranteed.

Call me skeptical but....

Firstly, I'm not disagreeing that if you can do something you're passionate about for work, you're probably going to be pretty high up on the happiness scale. But I don't think passion is necessarily the golden ticket to career fulfilment for everyone.

What if you're one of the many people that don't know what their passion is? I don't think everyone is walking around with a clear knowledge of what their passion is and just isn't doing anything about it, there are plenty of people that are still searching for their passion.

Secondly, there's no one out there that is really good and really successful in their career, without being passionate about it? I feel like it's become such a forced mantra of "passion at work is everything" that I'm sure there are people out there making themselves feel like they are failing because they don't feel passionate about what they do.

Is there anything wrong with a career strategy of doing what you're good at, that pays well and using the money you earn to do things you are passionate about that don't necessarily bring you an income?

Surely there are a few examples of people that pursued their passions and then regretted it? Because the need to make money from something they used to do for other reasons has ruined that experience?

Again, if you can do what you're passionate about for a career I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I just don't think it's a realistic rule of thumb for everyone.

I'm not even sure passion is the right word to use when talking about careers.

Strong and uncontrollable desires & emotions?

What if we pursued things we were really interested, invested and curious in, an approach of strong but controlled desires and emotions?

Maybe less passion in business would result in more stablilty, less firing and fewer Sunday Scaries for all?

Or the influencers are right and you must find your passion and you must pursue it.