The culture that we live in encourages people to live their dreams and follow their passions.
We don’t necessarily have a guideline to live the dream, to exercise our passions and to find the career that best suits us.
It seems that to get a fulfilling job or to do great work, following your passion is definitively not the way to go.
Why not?
Because following your passions is difficult, rarely successful and dangerous. Studies have shown that:
- Passions are not determined at birth.
- Most people can have several passions that have nothing to do with choosing the right job. Some people don’t necessarily have a passion to follow.
- Passions for a job takes time to develop. It takes time to build relationships, to become efficient at what you do and see the impact of your work.
- You become passionate when you master a skill.
- You become confused and anxious when you follow passion.
What should you do then?
When going after the career you want, you must measure the importance of growing a set of skills and adopt the craftsman mindset.
Indeed, there are two ways of thinking about work. There’s the craftsman mindset and the passion mindset.
The passion mindset focuses on what the world can offer you. It sets you constantly on high alert, seeking for what you don’t like. It leaves you perpetually in a state of confusion.
The craftsman mindset is useful in building the career that you want, irrespective of what type of work you do.
It focuses on what you produce and what you can offer the world. It leaves you with clarity and a love for what you do.
How to acquire the craftsman mindset?
Great work is a combination of creativity, impact and control. This combination is rare but valuable.
Matter of fact, great jobs are rare and valuable. To find them, you need to build up great skills and in turn offer skills that are rare and valuable.
The craftsman mindset is the best way to acquire skills Capital.
To grow a craftsman mindset, you can follow these 5 steps:
- Decide what Capital Market you belong to.
- Identify the type of Capital you want to pursue.
- Define clear goals for yourself.
- Get out of your comfort zone and stretch your abilities.
- Be patient.
How to gain control using your new found Capital?
Gaining control over what you do is an important part of enjoying what you do and is the hardest part.
Gaining control turns out to be tricky: you cannot ask for more control if you don’t have enough Capital to back it up or you have acquired lots of control that you can no longer evolve in your role.
It serves to have a unifying focus or mission for your career. A mission will focus your energy toward a useful goal and increase your impact on the world. To accomplish your mission, you can take small steps that generate concrete feedback.
Review
So Good They Can’t Ignore You is an extremely practical, logical guide to get the career that you want and to be so “good they can’t ignore you”.
In So Good They Can’t Ignore You, Cal Newport believes that you should not pursue your passions in order to achieve career success.
Instead, you should seek to improve your skills and apply yourself in a particular field. By mastering a skill, you will gain in efficiency and gradually become passionate about the work you do.
According to Cal Newport, people who solely follow their passions end up shifting careers when they realize that their career is not what is cracked up to be.
To get a fulfilling job and the career that you want, he suggests 4 rules or principles that are extracted from many successful people lives and that are difficult to implement.
It was very interesting and somewhat refreshing to hear an unpopular opinion. His principles and opinion are not designed for dreamers.
It is however designed for people at entry-level at their jobs, for analytical people who are geared towards efficient performance and who are career focused.
Even if I’m a practical person, I admittedly don’t see anything wrong with pushing people to follow their passions that might get them out of their comfort zone and into their dream job.
I think that there isn’t one approach to success or else everybody would be doing it. Some people are motivated by having a solid plan, others by an unshakable purpose and others by an exciting passion.
Let me know below what you think about this book!
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