Passion for work can be dangerous if it becomes your identity

Your job shouldn’t define
you.
Shutterstock / Jacob
Lund

• Feeling passion
  for and deriving meaning from work is often seen as a good
  thing. But in “The Job,” Ellen Ruppel Shell explains how that
  can backfire.
• If you lose your job, you might also feel like you’ve
  lost your identity.
• What’s more, employers might be inclined to take
  advantage of your devotion to work.
• Some CEOs — like Morgan Stanley’s James Gorman — have
  also said that your job shouldn’t define you.

In her new book, “The
Job,” journalist Ellen Ruppel Shell includes a chapter on
finding meaning in your work.

A meaningful job is something most of us aspire to (or at least
say we aspire to): A recent
BetterUp survey found that nine out of 10 American workers
would sacrifice some of their lifetime earnings if they could
find greater meaning at work.

Yet Shell makes a persuasive and relevant argument for the
potential hazards of finding too much meaning in your work.

Shell spoke to Amy Wrzesniewski, a Yale professor whose research
on “job
crafting” — or molding your job to be more meaningful to you
— has made its way into more than a few career-advice books and
articles.

Read more:


A Yale professor explains how to turn a boring job into a
meaningful career

Wrzesniewski’s research also divides workers into three different
categories: those who see their work as a job, a career, or a
“calling.” If you see your job as a calling, you’re inclined to
see your life and work as linked inextricably, and you’re
motivated by a sense of purpose and mission (as opposed to
financial rewards).

Sounds fine so far. But feeling called to your job is, as Shell
puts it, a double-edged sword.

Keep in mind that one day, you might not be doing your current
job anymore

Jeffery Thompson, a professor at Brigham Young University who has
researched job callings, gave Shell a few reasons why seeing your
work as a calling can be dangerous.

Thompson said, “If you believe you were put on this earth to fill
some ‘calling,’ and for whatever reason you do not do it, you
might easily consider that a moral failure.” What’s more,
Thompson said, if you feel called to your work, you might even be
more vulnerable to exploitation from managers, because they sense
you’ll do anything to stay in this role.

Another practical reason why callings can be harmful is the sheer
fact that, one day, you might lose your job.

This happened to Dan D’Agostino — who was fired from his position
as CEO of a multi-million dollar business. But as D’Agostino
wrote
on Business Insider, “Being fired and taking a year off has
provided me with the space to get truly comfortable with not
having my identity tied to an occupation.” Instead, D’Agostino
spent time traveling with his family.

Meanwhile, Sallie Krawcheck, the founder and CEO of Ellevest, has
spoken about getting fired from her position as head of Merrill
Lynch’s global wealth management division at Bank of America.

On an episode of the podcast Radiate,
Krawcheck said, “It really is about how you define yourself.
Do you define yourself by your title? Do you define yourself by
the company you work at? Do you define yourself by the amount of
money you make? Do you define yourself by whether you have a
corporate jet? I define myself by impact … and so, even when I
went on the big jobs, I thought ‘How can I have an impact?'”

Sometimes finding new passions — or new outlets for your longtime
passion — can be beneficial

In “The Job,” Shell describes research conducted by Sally
Maitlis, a professor at the University of Oxford’s Said Business
School. Maitlis followed professional dancers and musicians who
had to stop that work because of illness or injury. And she
learned that the artists who had felt most passionate about their
former careers were the least likely to bounce back.

On the other hand, some of the less passionate artists found ways
to channel their dedication to music or dance in other ways that
weren’t “jobs” per se.

One former bassoon player who had been hit by a car began reading
and teaching writing. She told Maitlis that her “world started
opening. A lot. And I started finding out I had ideas and
interesting things to say.” (This quotation isn’t included in
“The Job,” but it appears in a chapter Maitlis wrote in the book
“Exploring
Positive Identities and Organizations.”)

Shell summed up her conversation with Maitlis: “Flourishing in a
global economy requires us to see ourselves independent of our
jobs while maintaining a strong grasp of our work identity” —
something that, to be sure, is easier said than done.

James Gorman, CEO and chairman of Morgan Stanley, alluded to
something similar in an interview
with Bloomberg’s David Rubenstein. “You have to be able to, once
you’re not CEO, for that not to materially affect how you are as
a person,” he said. “Your job shouldn’t define you. Your job is:
You’re CEO for a point in time, you’re helping drive the vessel,
and you’ll get off it, and hopefully it does better after you’re
gone.”