Call Off the Search for Your Passion and Follow Your Curiosity Instead

We all know that person, that friend of a friend, who has a thing. Maybe they've known since high school that they wanted to be a doctor. Or they're an artist putting all their time into their craft. Or maybe they're devoted to a specific cause. They work tirelessly at one project that is the summary of their life's work. They have a passion.

But then there's the rest of us. We’re the directionless. We’re the dabblers, the dreamers, the beauty school dropouts. We’ve heard the rhetoric, the call to action, that we must have a thing. Everyone has a passion, right? Everyone has their one, shining thing that lights them up. It’s a person’s reason for being and the thing that has them jumping out of bed every morning with joy. So we’ve worked tirelessly to find ours. And still, we come up empty.

Society tells us we are incomplete. If you haven't found your purpose, you have failed. And the worst part is, we buy into this notion. We try things, but get bored. Or worse, we try things and love them, but let fear intervene. We ask ourselves, "Is this my passion?" We get critical. We wonder what we may be giving up if we commit to this one thing as our passion. Or we invent some other fear-based reason to discard the idea or project. We seize up. And before we know it, we’re back where we started: bored and passionless. And likely feeling like a loser. But here’s the thing. While we may lack a single-minded passion, we have something better.

Freedom.

Without a laser-focused purpose or passion to guide our every movement, we’re able to explore. We have the time and bandwidth to be curious. Every single person has the capacity for curiosity within them. And the good news is that exploring what makes you curious is low pressure, unlike looking down the barrel of finding one’s passion. Passion is constant, but curiosity is fluid.

Of course, this freedom brings with it a responsibility to be self-reflective. Without self-reflection, you may find yourself completely untethered, like a loose rope trailing behind a sailboat, flapping aimlessly at the mercy of the current and the wake of the boat. Ask yourself what you really want and what value you're extracting from your exploration.

In his book The Art of Work, Jeff Goins talks about what he calls “The Portfolio Life.” Goins argues that the days of the stagnant, one-way career path are coming to an end. Instead, we are now in the age of the portfolio or body of work. Rather than being a Data Analyst on the way to becoming the next department manager, we can create careers and meaningful work for ourselves by involving ourselves in a variety of projects that excite us. And bring us an income.

Taking time for a little self-reflection can help guide you as you’re building out your own portfolio life. Ask questions and cultivate further curiosity. That’s how you grow!

So, here’s my challenge to you. Forget finding your passion. Instead, follow your curiosity. Take that cooking class. Try rock climbing. Read a book on a subject that might challenge you. Test a new theory in your work. Explore. Play.

Free yourself from the pressure of finding a passion. Nothing kills creativity quite like the confines of rigidity. The life you want to live is on the other side of exploration. You just need the courage to let go and find out what’s out there.