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Is Pursuing Your Passion Terrible Advice? · Raising Daughters

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Raising Daughters, the podcast that helps parents learn
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  Speaker 1: the best ways to support their daughters as they navigate
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  Speaker 1: the high levels of stress, anxiety, pressure, and uncertainties so
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  Speaker 1: pervasive in our culture today. Doctor Tim Jordan is a
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  Speaker 1: developmental and behavioral pediatrician who has specialized in counseling girls
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  Speaker 1: for over thirty years and shed's light on the realities
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  Speaker 1: of today's young women in all facets of their lives.
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  Speaker 1: This is your opportunity to learn how to better support
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  Speaker 1: your daughters, making them feel safe, secure, and truly loved
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  Speaker 1: in the midst of life's ups and downs. Here is
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  Speaker 1: your host, Doctor Tim.
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  Speaker 2: Oh Friends Fetcher Tim Jordan back here with you with
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  Speaker 2: a brand new podcast, as I always do every week,
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  Speaker 2: and I'm so glad you came along today. I did
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  Speaker 2: a podcast recently talking about how to support your children's
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  Speaker 2: intrinsic motivation and the value of adults and young adults
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  Speaker 2: pursuing fulfillment at the start of their careers. I didn't
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  Speaker 2: touch on the fulfillment part very much, but I was motivated.
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  Speaker 2: I was more to do more to date with this podcast,
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  Speaker 2: and my title of this podcast, I think is going
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  Speaker 2: to be is pursuing your passion terrible advice to give
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  Speaker 2: to young people. I feel like it is a good
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  Speaker 2: thing pursue passions, pursue what fulfills you. But I get
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  Speaker 2: a lot of pushback from adults about that. I also
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  Speaker 2: read about sometimes in articles people saying that's not a
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  Speaker 2: good thing to teach young people to pursue their passions. Now,
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  Speaker 2: I think that the media, I think the culture, I
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  Speaker 2: think the educational system has kind of conditioned our young
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  Speaker 2: people to believe there's this one path to success. You
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  Speaker 2: study hard, you get straight a's, you go to a
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  Speaker 2: top college, you go to grad school where you get
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  Speaker 2: top grades, you get a good job, you make a
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  Speaker 2: lot of money. I think that is the path, and
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  Speaker 2: the definition of success has become gaining wealth and status
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  Speaker 2: by climbing the institutional ladder. To know your destination, have
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  Speaker 2: a goal, work hard, stay the course, and everybody is
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  Speaker 2: supposed to fit that mold. Now, our young people have
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  Speaker 2: also been conditions since they are little kids, that what
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  Speaker 2: was important was to be the best, to be popular,
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  Speaker 2: to be in the best teams. They get straight a's,
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  Speaker 2: to get into the best colleges, to be the best
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  Speaker 2: person at college, to get the best grad student program,
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  Speaker 2: all that best, best, best everybody to get this job,
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  Speaker 2: to get the best promotion, the highest salary, highest status.
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  Speaker 2: I'm afraid that along the way kids and young adults
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  Speaker 2: starts suppressing their yearnings. There's a sense I need to
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  Speaker 2: delay graphication. I need to delay happiness on this long march,
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  Speaker 2: this long slog to retirement, if you will, and that
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  Speaker 2: happiness and fulfillment will be this reward at the end
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  Speaker 2: of the line, if I stay the course, and we
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  Speaker 2: tend to believe that were granted happiness, I fulfillment is
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  Speaker 2: a consequence of mastering our vocation, That fulfillment is a
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  Speaker 2: payoff at the end. I don't believe. I don't believe
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  Speaker 2: in that kind of thinking. I saw the results of
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  Speaker 2: a twenty sixteen Gallop study sixty seven percent of employees
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  Speaker 2: were disengaged in their work. Beast forward eight years to
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  Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, a Gallops poll found that only eighteen
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  Speaker 2: percent of employees were extremely satisfied with their work, and
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  Speaker 2: that was a historic low. The same year, the Pew
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  Speaker 2: Research Center did a study and they found the eighty
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  Speaker 2: five percent of employees were disengaged unengaged at work. And
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  Speaker 2: I went back to see what they meant by unengaged
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  Speaker 2: or disengaged and engaged employees in their definition, was people
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  Speaker 2: who are emotionally invested in their work. They're committed to
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  Speaker 2: the organization's success. They show up with energy and purpose
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  Speaker 2: and a drive to perform at their best. Now, I
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  Speaker 2: think a lot of young adults I bump into, and
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  Speaker 2: I know and who I meet are worried today that
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  Speaker 2: they're gonna end up settling like they say their parents did,
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  Speaker 2: because I think many of them see parents who aren't
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  Speaker 2: really happy in their jobs who maybe are or those
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  Speaker 2: unengaged employees. I think that sense of searching for glory,
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  Speaker 2: being better than other people, all those are external kinds
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  Speaker 2: of things. Making a lot of money, being famous, looking good.
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  Speaker 2: Those are those external things that research has showed. If
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  Speaker 2: that is what motivates you, you're going to end up more,
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  Speaker 2: more depressed, more anxious, have poor relationships. It's not a
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  Speaker 2: good motivation. I'll tell you what is a good motivation.
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  Speaker 2: That is pursuing things that fulfill you and puts you
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  Speaker 2: in flow. Some people describe being in flow as being
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  Speaker 2: that zone of genius. It's being fully engaged in something
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  Speaker 2: that you choose to do. You get so into it
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  Speaker 2: because you're so passionate about it that you lose time.
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  Speaker 2: You would do it for nothing. A zone of genius
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  Speaker 2: happens when we have choice in what we're engaged with. Also,
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  Speaker 2: oftentimes it helps if we're good at it, and getting
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  Speaker 2: in flow is where we end up experiencing, oftentimes our
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  Speaker 2: greatest fulfillment. All kids are drawing spontaneously to areas that
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  Speaker 2: engage them, and any activity that consumes you or you're
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  Speaker 2: in flow that becomes intrinsically rewarding. You don't need to
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  Speaker 2: be paid, you don't need affirmations, you don't need to
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  Speaker 2: be patted on the back, because the activity itself is
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  Speaker 2: rewarding losing yourself and what you love to do. So
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  Speaker 2: flow is a type of intrinsic motivation. You do what
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  Speaker 2: you're doing primarily because you love what you're doing. You
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  Speaker 2: learn for its own sake, it's addictive. You want to
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  Speaker 2: repeat that feeling of fulfillment. Now, I've learned over time
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  Speaker 2: in working with lots of people, young people, even adults,
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  Speaker 2: that we don't tend to experience flow or fulfillment by
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  Speaker 2: being excellent as something, but by being deeply engaged with
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  Speaker 2: something that we choose to do. Let me say that again,
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  Speaker 2: we don't tend to experience flow and fulfillment by being
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  Speaker 2: excellent at something, but we experience those things by being
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  Speaker 2: deeply engaged with things of our own. Choosing engagement and
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  Speaker 2: fulfilling work maximizes our ability to learn and to grow
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  Speaker 2: and to perform, to stick with things when it becomes hard.
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  Speaker 2: So I suggest to young people that pursuing passion, pursuing
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  Speaker 2: some things that that fulfill you, that the first step
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  Speaker 2: is to prioritize fulfillment, to honor their deep yearnings and
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  Speaker 2: their aspirations, things they're drawn to they're passionate about. I've
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  Speaker 2: mentioned before in some previous podcasts a while back. I
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  Speaker 2: also encourage young adults, especially even starting in high school,
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  Speaker 2: to start becoming aware of what some people call identity capital,
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  Speaker 2: like your personal assets. It's like, if you're eighteen or
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  Speaker 2: twenty two, what do you have to show for yourself
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  Speaker 2: based on how you've spent your time so far, investments
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  Speaker 2: you've made in yourself, your aptitudes, things you're good at, interests, passions,
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  Speaker 2: things that you've done to solve problems, how you've coped
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  Speaker 2: with life ups and downs, Hobbies, life experiences. Say, if
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  Speaker 2: you make a timeline of the things that you've done
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  Speaker 2: and been invested in, then you can step back and say,
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  Speaker 2: what I learn about myself from all these experiences? Do
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  Speaker 2: it one at a time. What did I like about them?
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  Speaker 2: Did I get fulfilled? And why? Who did I do
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  Speaker 2: it with? What did I do? Where did I do it?
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  Speaker 2: What was the context? Those are all really important questions
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  Speaker 2: to start discovering what's my next step? I said it earlier,
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  Speaker 2: I'm going to say it again. We tend to get
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  Speaker 2: better the things that we care about the most, the
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  Speaker 2: things that we're passionate about, the things that fulfill us.
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  Speaker 2: And the first step along the path of finding your
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  Speaker 2: calling is to tize fulfillment. To honor your deepest yearnings,
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  Speaker 2: your aspirations, things you're drawn to, to trust your intuition
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  Speaker 2: and your gut. It was the pursuit of fulfillment that
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  Speaker 2: tends to lead people to success. It was a pursuit
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  Speaker 2: of fulfillment that was so crucial for the success. We
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  Speaker 2: aren't fulfilled by being really good at something. We're not
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  Speaker 2: fulfilled by being excellent as something. We're fulfilled by being
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  Speaker 2: deeply engaged with something that we have chosen to do so.
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  Speaker 2: The question I started us with in this podcast was,
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  Speaker 2: is encouraging young adults to pursue their passions and fulfillment
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  Speaker 2: right from the start. Is that faulty advice? Is it
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  Speaker 2: faulty thinking? I say no. I say it's the best,
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  Speaker 2: the best path to finding work that engages you and
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  Speaker 2: fulfills you and will bring you happy to start from
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  Speaker 2: the beginning, not wait for it as some end result
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  Speaker 2: at the very end. If you have other thoughts about
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  Speaker 2: this topic, I would love for you to send me
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  Speaker 2: an email at A N N E and at Dr
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  Speaker 2: Tim Jordan dot com let them know your thoughts. You
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  Speaker 2: might want to listen to this podcast with your daughter,
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  Speaker 2: our sons if you have sons, especially ones who are
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  Speaker 2: in high school or beyond, and then get into a
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  Speaker 2: discussion about what that might mean for them. I did
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  Speaker 2: a podcast several years ago with Meg Jay about her
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  Speaker 2: book The Defining Decade. You might want to go back
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  Speaker 2: to that podcast, and actually I'll put that link in
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  Speaker 2: my show notes. She talks in her podcast about identity capital.
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  Speaker 2: Also go back to that podcast I did recently about
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  Speaker 2: happiness and fulfillment. That also will kind of set this
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  Speaker 2: up for this one. I'll be back in a week
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  Speaker 2: with a brand new podcast. If you have questions, If
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  Speaker 2: you have suggestions about podcasts, please send them to my
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  Speaker 2: email or my wife's email and a N N E
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  Speaker 2: at d R Tim Jordan dot com. I thought it
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  Speaker 2: might be interesting to do a podcast just answering your questions,
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  Speaker 2: but I need you know at least a half a
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  Speaker 2: dozen questions for it to do that, so please send
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  Speaker 2: them in questions not just about today's podcast, but about
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  Speaker 2: anything you have questions about with your daughters and raising
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  Speaker 2: your daughters. Thank you so much for passing these podcasts along,
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  Speaker 2: by the way, and thank you so much for coming
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  Speaker 2: by such a nice, committed group of listeners. I really
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  Speaker 2: appreciate that. I'll be back in a week with a
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  Speaker 2: brand new podcast. Thanks so much for stopping by.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Raising Daughters.
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  Speaker 1: Hopefully you've learned something useful about girls and young women
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  Speaker 1: and how to help them navigate the pressures, challenges and
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  Speaker 1: opportunities of modern life. If you want to become a
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  Speaker 1: more effective parent, keep listening to the show at doctor
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  Speaker 1: Tim Jordan dot com and let the conversations shape you
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  Speaker 1: build that one of a kind connection with your daughters
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  Speaker 1: in the most profound and meaningful ways possible, shaping them
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  Speaker 1: into strong, confident women of the future. That's all for now,
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  Speaker 1: See you next week for another episode of Raising Daughters.