Here is the transcript from the latest video about caring v passion.
“Hello. I have made this video because I was talking to some people online earlier on today and we were discussing the protective factors. And if you haven’t heard of those before the protective factors are those things which can essentially help us maintain resilience or even enhance it, those things that when things get tough around us can help protect our psychological well-being and protective factors can be things like exercise, a good diet, a good group of friends around and family that we can discuss things with and a few others, but one protective factor, which I believe is often missed out is connected to the word passion. Now what really made the conversation earlier come alive is that I’ve been reading an article by a professor from Harvard Business School. Jon Jachimowicz and I’ll put a link to the article in the in description to this video and he’s done a lot of research in and around passion and a couple of things that leapt out to me are things that…you probably already know this but sometimes it’s just worth getting that reminder; that passion can be really difficult to find, sometimes passion disappears and yet we’ve all probably seen somebody, a motivational expert talking about, you know, find your passion, and when you do that everything falls into place, I think it’s a great thing if you can find your passion, but that’s the issue. Sometimes it’s tough to do that and sometimes you can find the passion but it’s difficult to find how to earn any money with that passion. Maybe that’s a lack of creativity. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t, and so what you’ve got to do is do the thing that you’re passionate about and make money another way. What leapt out for me additionally in that article was a little description of how some people frame things in terms of what they want to get out of life what they want to focus on, some people focus on the classic, the passion, do what you love, find what it is that you love and follow that, but other people suggest that what you should do is focus on those things that you care about And follow those in terms of a career and I would add in terms of setting goals. Now it might seem like not much of a distinction initially, but if you think about passion it can be quite fleeting. That’s quite a high-level powerful emotion, but caring, that tends to have more longevity for a lot of people and it tends to be steadier, it tends not to fluctuate as much, imagine the following, I’ll use this little plug here as a prop, imagine somebody says well look, you know, that’s out of date. now. That’s an old School plug. We should recycle it, chuck it out, and I say well no, Surely not because my great great great grandfather gave me this. So I value it. And because I value it it has meaning and so I’m going to protect it. I’m not going to allow it to be thrown out. It’s really important to keep this plug. If you think about that to use that analogy and expand it into the real world, if you think about something that you care about, what does that actually mean? It means that you value it, that it is something that you would protect, that you would strive to enhance, protect as I’ve mentioned, augment, improve, perhaps even it’s something that’s missing and you need to create because you value that which is not there already, or is there in a diminished way. When we set goals in alignment with the thing that we care about that has meaning to us, it essentially gives us meaning and when we move towards that thing that gives us meaning, we schedule, we prepare, we work, that gives us a sense of purpose. So there we have in my opinion another important protective factor, the sense of meaning and purpose, but it’s ignited …it is ignited not by passion alone, although passion can be there, and that’s great if it is …it’s ignited long term by finding those things that we care about and meaning and purpose and moving forward is so important. It’s in a sense of version of that, that idea of not to focus on those things that we can’t control but to focus on those things that we can; if it’s raining outside that’s a change in the weather. What do I do? Find a jacket to put on, that’s a protective factor. I may get a bit wet, but not as much as I would have done without that protection; and I’m not focused on the rain, I’m focused on the task at hand. So we shouldn’t be focused on the rain. We should be focused on the task at hand, those things that we can influence, and make a difference to…all very beneficial for us psychologically. I think it was Martin Luther King Jr. who said, let me paraphrase this slightly…something along the lines of, if you can fly, fly…if you can’t fly run, if you can’t run, walk…if you can’t walk, crawl but whatever you do, you’ve got to keep moving forward. And I think that is so true. We have got to keep moving forward. I had a message from somebody just the other day there who has retired, inverted commas. They have given up a job after a relatively long time and are looking around and wondering what they should do, and they should said to me now I understand why you keep on banging on about meaning and purpose because, I feel like I’m evaporating almost, I’m diminishing I’m drifting. This is not a good feeling. Another example of the need to be moving forward. It’s so crucial for us. And therefore I’d ask you to have a think about what you care about. You might be thinking well, there’s nothing I can do inside work. It may have to be outside work, that’s true. It’s exactly the same for passion. We have to be aware of that, if it’s in work great, but it might not be; but let’s just run with that for a second, suppose you decide that you care about Mental Health but that’s not your role in work, but maybe you care about it. So maybe what you could do is to adopt a role, not an official role, of somebody, who is there, who makes sure that they talk to people, who who really looks out for the emotional tone of the team and the business, and in due course, hopefully you’ll influence other people and help raise and/or maintain it. There would be a way to take something which you cared about, but wasn’t in the job description As I’ve suggested it could also be outside work and that’s absolutely fine. So, what are you going to do about this? Passion? Yep, sure. It maybe I care about and I’m passionate…fine, but try that little exercise out, try out sitting down, having a real think, writing down with a pen and a bit of paper, or typing it, those things that you truly care about. You may already be aligned in terms of your goals, your meaning and purpose in life, to them, but maybe not, maybe you’ll get some insights and maybe you can then set some goals from them, because make no mistake, things will remain different, the ‘New Normal’ may also shift, and it’s been unsettling. It will continue to be unsettled. We have to decide to make sure that we put things in place to look after ourselves in the first instance, so we can look after other people and one of those things is to continually move forward as Martin Luther King suggests and align that movement to those things that we care about because as the passion may wax and wane, the caring is unlikely to, so as the weather changes, improves, gets worse we can hold a steady course, and that’s so important for us. So please have a think. What do you care about? What do you really care about?”
