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Do you want to love what you do for a living? Follow your passion. This piece of advice provides the foundation for modern thinking on career satisfaction. But this can be a problem.

I've spent the past several years researching and writing about the different strategies we use to seek happiness in our work. It became clear early in the process that the suggestion to ” follow your passion" was flawed, for it lacks scientific evidence. However, it doesn't mean you should abandon the goal of feeling passionate about your work. The reality emphasizes that things are quite complicated.

Passion is earned. Different people are looking for different things in their work, but generally, people with satisfying careers enjoy some combination of the following features: autonomy£¬respect£¬competence£¬creativity£¬and a sense of impact. In other words£¬if you want to feel passionate about your livelihood£¬don't seek the perfect job£¬but seek to get more of these features in the job you already have.

Passion is elusive (ÄÑ×½ÃþµÄ£©.Many people develop the rare and valuable skills leading to passion , but still end up unhappy in their work. The problem is that the features leading you to love your work are more likely to be useful to you than your organization. As you become increasingly ‘‘valuable”£¬for example, your boss might push you toward traditional promotions that come with more pay and more responsibility, as this is what is most useful to your company. However, you might find more passion by applying your value to gain autonomy in your schedule or project selection.