20 years later and the need for passion at work is still relevant

While the current talking point of people deciding to find passion in their work is the COVID-19 pandemic, the tragedy of 9/11 was another event that caused people to reexamine their work.  The Harvard Business Review looked at how 9/11 caused people to notice their work was draining and find ways to make it feel more purposeful, a lot of what they found is still very relevant in 2022.

The bulk of their article focused on how to tell if your passion for your work is draining or gone.  They stated that if you feel trapped, bored, or like you’re compromising your ethics it may be time to reexamine your work.  These feelings are still very present for people even 20 years later. It’s important to notice them and try to solve the issue. The article also suggested some solutions to help renew your initial passion for work.  Calling a time-out, finding a program, working with a coach (like Perform with Purpose), and finding new meaning in a familiar environment are all ways that the article suggests finding passion in draining work. A lot of these suggestions are still very relevant to today and could help solve the issue of people feeling drained after losing their passion at work.

This article was really interesting to me because even though it was written 20 years ago, these are still feelings that employees experience, and the solutions that the article offers are still very helpful to people now. It’s also interesting to me how there is a surge of people searching for passion in their work following a shocking event such as the pandemic or 9/11. While these events are tragedies, a silver lining is that it helps people to find work that they are truly passionate about.

It's important to remember that even if there wasn't a shocking global event, having passion for your work is still important to someone's overall success and happiness. The solutions that are offered in this article can be applied at any time to help people find joy in their work.

Written by: Bryn Garick

Sources: Reawakening your passion for work. Harvard Business Review. (2014, November 12). Retrieved July 8, 2022, from https://hbr.org/2002/04/reawakening-your-passion-for-work