First, a vocabulary lesson.
- Passion - a strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm or desire for anything
- Profession - a type of job that requires special education, training, or skill
I understand that the term ‘passion’ is ambiguous by definition, so, as with everything that I post about, this is my opinion. But let me tell you why I think that it is important to distinguish passion from profession.
Consider passion to be your WHY and profession to be your HOW.
For example, my passion is helping and serving people. How do I do that? Through the profession of athletic training. I also really love to celebrate other people. How do I do that? I volunteer on the public relations committee, which allows me to broadcast the great things that athletic trainers are doing across the nation.
When you believe that a profession is your passion, that indicates that the said passion (and therefore, profession) will bring you joy, enthusiasm, and other strong emotions that drive and guide you along your career path. Professions CANNOT do that. Professions CAN be the avenue in which you choose to expose and impose your passion.
If you believe that your profession is your passion, then you will soon make an abrupt exit feeling scorned and underwhelmed because a profession will never give back to you what you pour into it. However, if you can objectively think of your passion as a WHY, and not a HOW, then you will discover that the very work that you do everyday gives back to you. Your patient's appreciation, their sooner-than-expected-return-to-activity, their milestone-reaching-moment in rehab, their trust in you…THAT, my fellow athletic trainers, is how I live out my passion. The intrinsic rewards that I receive by helping people cannot be provided by a profession, it is provided by helping people.
I have as much joy returning a patient back to activity safely as I do when I serve as a volunteer in my church, or donating to the food pantry. Why? Because my passion is helping people. How? Through my profession, my church, and other service.
Once you take the pressure off of your profession to provide to you intrinsic rewards that you require to know that your passion is being fulfilled, then you may find that your passion is being lived out in every moment of every day, while at work or anywhere else. Your profession will never give back to you what you give it. It can't! Professions are a man-made idea of the driving force of our world today which has morphed into a ranking system with correlated salaries based on what society deems to be worthy of such. But that is a whole other blog post.
So, get on with your passion! Focus on your patients, on helping those around you. Isn't that why you got into athletic training to begin with? Find the joy in your work that you had when you first started as a student and a young professional. If you do this, you just might find that your joy and your passion will be infectious. Others will take notice, especially your patients. Heck, you may even see that the feeling of burnout disappears a bit.
But what do I know :)
