Should I try to find a passion or an ideal job?

The full question

Should I try to find a passion or an ideal job? Or, instead, should I make the most with the job I already have?

What experts say

That's a question that Cal Newport answers in his podcast Deep Questions, Episode 263 "Overhaul Your Life.", it's also the subject of one of his earlier books called "So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love"

What Cal suggests is that instead of constantly changing jobs, we should instead focus on planning our careers around the lifestyle we'd like to have.

This means it's not so much about finding a job that has exactly the passion that we have. But instead, we want to find a job that makes it possible for us to have the life rhythm, and work-life balance that is the best for us.

We should, therefore, shift from a passion mindset to a craftsman mindset where we focus on improving our skills in our job.

My two cents

Personally, I think that you can find passion in almost any job as long as it's within the boundaries of what is interesting to you.

I'm a big believer that as long as something is interesting, you can then turn it into something that you're passionate about. Obviously, this might take some time and need some design work on your side to rethink how the job is done, so that it leads to interesting learnings which then will become something you're passionate about.

So passion is the result instead of being the start