In many self-help and career blogs, peo­ple wax lyri­cal about how you should not cease search­ing for your ‘pas­sion’; that elu­sive cause that you would be happy to devote your life to… some­thing that makes ‘work’ feel like ‘play’.

Gretchen Rubin of The Hap­pi­ness Project, how­ever, believes that ask­ing your­self, “What’s my pas­sion” may not be help­ful.

A twenty-something guy […] asked whether he should stay in a job that, although the peo­ple and the work were inter­est­ing, and the pay was good, wasn’t his passion.

I’m para­phras­ing, but in part Dan Pink answered, “I never ask myself ‘What’s my pas­sion?’ That ques­tion is too huge. It’s not helpful.”

It can be hard to iden­tify your “pas­sion,” but you can iden­tify what you did last Sun­day after­noon. “Do what you do” is use­ful because it directs you to look at your behav­ior, rather than to your ideas – which can be a clearer guide to preferences.