There are many things in life that motivate us. Perhaps the most illusive of these motivators is passion. There seems to be a difficulty in translating our passions in life to our passions at work. We often find ourselves working for pay, working for success, working to achieve something that we think we care about, only to find it empty.

While doing these things there is often some other passion we have in life, be it writing, acting, reading, running, whatever. Many people will tell you to find what you are passionate about and then figure out how to get paid for it. Here is a fact, right now jobs are somewhat hard to come by, so I am going to counter the popular idealistic viewpoint and take a more realistic stance. Sometimes we just need a job.

The trick: find ways to make elements of that job fall in line with your passion. For example, if acting is what you enjoy…volunteer to give presentations and put some flair behind it. If you enjoy running, volunteer to put together a local race event for some employees that share your passion. In other words, use that “think outside the box” business savvy to bring passion to your work rather than focusing so much on making our passion our work.

This idea of being passionate about something seems to ring true with many people.  I have found that right now people’s first priority is to find work that pays the bills, second is to find work that fulfills them.  After the bills seem to be under control, that is when people branch out and look for something more fulfilling.  Perhaps more of us can avoid the job jump by finding ways to incorporate our passions and to intermingle them with our daily jobs.