Comments on: Do what you love mirage

By: Adam Stallard

Adam Stallard — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:37:15 +0000

The efficacy of “do what you love” also has a lot to do with your definition of success. If you are only happy when you have money, of course the advice “do what you love” won’t work–money is not constant or dependable.

There are some things that are always worth attempting; the key to happiness and success is to find and do those things.

I am doing a startup right now, and if by some one-in-a-thousand chance, I become very rich, I will still always tell people to “do what they love.”

By: Sue Z

Sue Z — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 01:45:47 +0000

Ok, I may sound pollyanna-ish, AND I believe that we can have our career cake ad eat it too. Denis, I love your post and appreciate what it conveys. Still, as a passions & possibilities coach, I think it an be a strategy to give up too soon on one’s dreams..that is, to use circumstances as an excuse not to go for what sings our hearts. True, it’s a balancing act between loving what’s so now AND not staying there. Truer still, it’s important to express our talents and gifts, if not our true passions. AND…When I really check in with myself and clients as to what’s in the way of doing what we love and having the rest follow, I find either/or thinking: either I follow my dreams 180% or NOT. Either I’m successful and thriving at what I love OR I’m not. Commitment and perseverance are both required to move through the times when we’re not quite thriving as we follow our dreams. Bottom line? Nothing’s “secure” anymore now anyway, so why not take baby steps in the direction of passion rather than just in a comfort zone of what we’re good (or even great) at. None of the Passioneers I’ve interviewed around the world ever regretted making the leap into what they love…except to say they wished they had done it sooner. And ALL of them found their prosperity quotient higher than when they started, albeit perhaps on a lower budget. I say GO FOR IT, let go of comfort zones, and live like there’s no tomorrow. Happy Passioneering!

By: @TheKeyboard » Blog Archive » What’s In Chris’ Brain – Christmas 2009 Edition

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 01:41:40 +0000

[...] on Twitter I posted about this blog post which talked about how it’s only people who are financially secure who pound away at the [...]

By: Rajesh

Rajesh — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 04:23:37 +0000

Denis,

Very interesting post.

I often find people unhappy because they are not doing what they love. And when I ask, do you hate your current job, they say.. “No..it’s ok…but I love doing XXX..” . Imagine what they could be if they work heartily for those 8 hours.

The main problem I see with the ” Do what you love ” mantra is that it assumes if you love something, they would be (or should be) good enough to make it a career which is not always true.

The second thing is that inspite of having jobs which are interesting enough and challenging enough, these fairy tales inspire people to believe that out there…there exists jobs where they have an incredible ability to be better at something from day one just because they love it ….. which is not true. Also, why is it so necessary that if you love doing something, it has to become your job.!!?

Instead of looking for the perfect job , you should work with all your heart at your current interesting job and pretty soon.. you’d feel good at your workplace as you do good work and your work is appreciated… and it is an upward spiral from there on. Sure, you could always change paths … but you should not be chasing mirages.

Thanks for the interesting post!
Rajesh.

By: Denis Basaric

Denis Basaric — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 13:05:59 +0000

Hi Cary, Thank you for great discussion.

By: Cary Millsap

Cary Millsap — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 00:47:30 +0000

Denis, I was inspired by your post and wrote http://carymillsap.blogspot.com/2009/12/do-what-you-love-mirage.html in response. Thank you for your article.

By: Denis Basaric

Denis Basaric — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 17:11:01 +0000

Jeff, thanks for stopping by. Accepting your conditions as they are, does not preclude you from getting to where you want to be. Getting to where you want to be always, always necessitates working harder, better and pushing yourself beyond imagined limits.

“Do what you love” is very often mirage. You have to love whatever you are doing right now or you will not get anywhere… Sure as hell beats being miserable with whatever you are doing

By: Jeffrey Martin

Jeffrey Martin — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:29:21 +0000

you’ll also learn to love your arranged-marriage wife/husband after many years of convincing yourself, so I’ve heard.

I remember a quote from a Kafka story, taking place in some awful tenement / industrial neighborhood — There’s a bad smell everywhere, but eventually, you get used to it — something along those lines anyway.

No, “do what you love” is good advice. Convincing yourself to love something because you can’t do what you really want to do is a recipe for a crisis down the road. But you have to be ready to work harder than only “loving what you do”.

By: Denis Basaric

Denis Basaric — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 18:03:34 +0000

You are spot on. I like this from Eckhart Tolle: “Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be”

By: Denis Basaric

Denis Basaric — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 18:01:38 +0000

Yeah he definitely perfected his aim. Thanks for stopping by Giles!