Should you follow your passion?

The idea of ‘following your passion’ is widespread in popular culture and on social media. With the pandemic having given many people pause to reflect on meaning in their own lives, this episode of LSE iQ asks whether the advice to ‘follow you heart’ or to ‘find your calling’, is good advice.

We’ll learn how following a calling turned one LSE graduate to beer and building a successful social enterprise, via a holy revelation. We’ll hear stories of animal hoarding, passions gone wrong and burnout. And there’s some hopeful news for those of us who just haven’t found our passion yet.

Contributors:
Professor Shasa Dobrow
Professor Sally Maitlis
Nick O’Shea

Research
Follow your heart or your head? A longitudinal study of the facilitating role of calling and ability in the pursuit of a challenging career (2015) by Shoshana Dobrow Riza and Daniel Heller in Journal of Applied Psychology.

How to avoid burnout when you follow your passion in your career choice (2017) by Kira Schabram and Sally Maitlis in the LSE Business Review blog.

Negotiating the Challenges of a Calling: Emotion and Enacted Sensemaking in Animal Shelter Work, Academy of Management Journal (2017) by Kira Schabram and Sally Maitlis.