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The Passion Paradox: Why Most People Are Living Someone Else's Dream
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You know what pisses me off? When someone tells me they're "finding their passion" like it's a bloody treasure hunt in their backyard. After 17 years of working with everyone from burned-out executives to fresh-faced graduates, I can tell you this much: passion isn't lost. It's buried under layers of other people's expectations and your own fear of looking foolish.
The whole "follow your passion" industry has turned into a self-help circus. Everyone's searching for this magical moment when lightning strikes and suddenly they know exactly what they're meant to do. Bollocks.
Here's what I learned the hard way - and trust me, it was bloody hard. Three years ago, I was sitting in my Brisbane office, watching another client drone on about how unfulfilled they felt in their accounting job. Meanwhile, I was running leadership workshops that felt about as inspiring as watching paint dry. The irony wasn't lost on me.
The Great Passion Lie We Tell Ourselves
Most of us were raised on this toxic idea that passion should feel like fireworks. That when you find "it," you'll never work another day in your life. What utter rubbish.
Passion is messy. It's frustrating. It's staying up until 2am because you can't stop thinking about a problem you're trying to solve. It's the thing that makes you slightly obsessive and possibly annoying at dinner parties.
I've worked with over 500 professionals across Melbourne, Sydney, and Perth, and here's what 73% of them get wrong: they're waiting for passion to feel easy. They want it to be like falling in love in a romantic comedy - instant, obvious, and without any of the messy complications.
Take my mate Sarah from Adelaide. Brilliant marketing executive, earning six figures, completely miserable. Spent two years and $15,000 on career coaches trying to "find her passion." You know what her breakthrough was? Admitting she'd always loved teaching but thought it wasn't "successful enough" for someone with her qualifications.
Now she runs professional development training workshops and makes about the same money. The difference? She actually looks forward to Monday mornings.
The Three Lies About Passion That Keep You Stuck
Lie #1: You'll Know It When You See It
Rubbish. Most people's true passions develop slowly, like learning to appreciate good wine or understanding why cricket is actually interesting. You don't walk into a room and suddenly think, "Yes! Data analysis is my calling!" You gradually notice you're the person everyone comes to when the spreadsheets get complicated.
Lie #2: It Should Feel Natural
Double rubbish. I'm passionate about leadership development now, but when I started, I was terrible at it. Genuinely awful. My first workshop in 2007 was so bad that three people asked for their money back. But something about the challenge hooked me.
The things we're passionate about often start as things we're merely curious about but willing to be bad at for a while.
Lie #3: You Can Only Have One
This is the biggest load of codswallop going around. Modern life is complex. You can be passionate about sustainable business practices AND good coffee AND helping your kids with their homework. The idea that you need one singular calling is outdated Protestant work ethic nonsense.
What Actually Works: The Passion Archaeology Method
Forget vision boards and personality tests. Here's what actually moves the needle:
Step 1: Notice Your Natural Complaints
What gets under your skin? What makes you want to fix things? I couldn't stand how most leadership training was theoretical garbage that didn't work in real workplaces. That irritation became the foundation of my growth-focused approach to professional development.
Your complaints often point directly to your passion zone. You care enough about something to be annoyed when it's done poorly.
Step 2: Track Your Energy Patterns
For two weeks, note when you feel energised and when you feel drained. Don't analyse it - just observe. You might discover you light up during project planning sessions but die a slow death in status update meetings.
One client realised she was most energised when troubleshooting problems for colleagues. Turned out she was a natural consultant who'd been stuck in an operational role for eight years.
Step 3: Experiment Small
Stop trying to make massive life changes. Try tiny experiments instead. Volunteer for projects that interest you. Take on tasks that stretch you in new directions. Join committees. Offer to help with initiatives outside your regular job.
I started writing articles about workplace culture because I was frustrated with the bland corporate speak everywhere. Those articles led to speaking opportunities, which led to consulting work, which eventually became my main focus.
The Real Secret: Passion Follows Competence
Here's the thing nobody wants to hear - passion often follows competence, not the other way around. You don't need to love something to get good at it, but you often start loving things once you get good at them.
This is particularly true in Australia, where we have this cultural thing about not being too enthusiastic about anything. We're suspicious of people who are too keen. But competence? Competence is respected.
Start with what you're curious about. Get good at it. Let the passion develop naturally.
The Energy Management Reality Check
The real question isn't "What's my passion?" It's "What gives me energy and what drains it?"
I work with executives who think they need to find their passion when what they really need is to stop doing things that exhaust them. Sometimes the path to passion is through elimination, not addition.
That accounting client I mentioned earlier? Turns out he didn't hate numbers - he hated the isolation of traditional accounting work. He moved into financial consulting where he could work directly with business owners. Same skills, completely different energy.
When Passion Feels Like Work (And That's Okay)
One more thing that drives me mental about the passion conversation - this idea that if you're passionate about something, it won't feel like work.
Absolute nonsense.
I'm passionate about helping teams communicate better, but some days that means having difficult conversations with resistant managers. Some days it means administrative work. Some days it means training sessions that run long and leave me exhausted.
Passion doesn't eliminate the challenging parts of work - it makes them worthwhile.
The Australian Pragmatic Approach
Forget the American-style "dream big" rhetoric. The Australian way is more practical: start where you are, do good work, pay attention to what energises you, and make gradual adjustments.
You don't need to quit your job and move to Bali to find your passion. You might find it in the project you volunteer for next week or the problem you offer to solve for a colleague.
The goal isn't to live some perfectly passionate life - it's to increase the percentage of your time spent on things that energise and engage you.
Most people I work with don't need a complete career overhaul. They need better boundaries, clearer communication about what they want, and the courage to say no to things that drain them consistently.
Sometimes passion isn't about finding the perfect job. Sometimes it's about bringing more of yourself to the job you have.
But if you're still convinced you need to "find your passion," start with this: What problem in the world annoys you enough that you'd be willing to spend years getting good at solving it?
That's probably a pretty good place to start digging.
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