What Are The Risks Of A Passionate Job?
For many young people or adults undergoing professional reconversion, turning a passion into a profession seems to be an ideal way to achieve professional fulfillment. Two out of five French people would like to turn a passion into a professional activity. And yet, loving one's work passionately is not without danger. We explain to you the risks of a passionate job.
When you love, you don't count
When it comes to career guidance, we often quote the philosopher Confucius' adage: 'Choose a job you love and you won't have to work a day in your life'.
Indeed, a passion-job can be defined as an activity that is not perceived as a job. For many, being passionate about what you do to the point of not feeling the effort involved is a guarantee of professional fulfillment.
Yet, making your passion your job doesn't only have good sides. As another well-known saying goes, 'when you love, you don't count'.
In the professional field, you don't count your hours and that's the problem! The first risk of a passion job is to work a lot of overtime sometimes unpaid.
Why is this professional passion potentially toxic?
Just like a love passion, a work passion can quickly become invasive. When you have a job you love passionately, it's not just "a job" and it's harder to set boundaries.
Moreover, it should be noted that this all-consuming passion is not reserved for certain fields such as the world of health, sports, teaching or artistic or associative professions.
Anyone can be trapped in a passionate and toxic relationship with their work, provided they love what they do.
What is the other side of the coin?
Of course, having a passionate job has its good points. This is usually the only aspect that you see when you dream of turning a passion into a profession.
Being able to use one's skills and feel autonomous and in one's place contributes to the well-being of the worker, whether self-employed or employed. Doing something you enjoy also allows you to find meaning in your work.
But, on the other hand, a passion job carries several risks that should not be overlooked:
- the risk of working long hours to the detriment of one's health, without even realizing it
- the risk of being exploited by one's hierarchy and/or of finding oneself in a precarious financial situation
- the risk of becoming increasingly demanding of oneself
- the risk of systematically favouring one's passion to the detriment of one's personal and family life.
For the different reasons stated above, having a passionate job increases the risk of suffering a burn-out overnight.
Another major danger would be to see your job encroach on your personal and family life, until your entire existence is reduced to your professional passion. To avoid this, you absolutely must put boundaries between your professional and personal life.
Tell yourself that you can love your work, be committed to it and be an excellent professional without your job becoming an obsession and disrupting the balance between your professional and personal life.
Furthermore, your passion should not lead you to accept a precarious professional and financial situation. If the stability of your job is not guaranteed and/or you do not earn enough money, it is better to look elsewhere for a stable job, even "food", and to practice the activity that you are passionate about on your free time.
Finally, if you dream of a professional reconversion in a field that you are passionate about, know that passion is not enough for your professional project to be viable.
In order to put all the chances on your side, you may have to accept to go back to training especially to learn how to manage the accounting and administrative part inherent to any entrepreneurial project.
