From Academia to Alignment

‘Find Your Passion’ Is Awful Advice

A major new study questions the common wisdom about how we should choose our careers.

What Happens When Your Career Becomes Your Whole Identity

Many people with high-pressure jobs find themselves unhappy with their careers, despite working hard their whole lives to get to their current position. Hating your job is one thing  –  but what happens if you identify so closely with your work that hating your job means hating yourself?Psychologists use the term “enmeshment” to describe a situation where the boundaries between people become blurred, and individual identities lose importance. Enmeshment prevents the development of a stable, independent sense of self. While identifying closely with your career isn’t necessarily bad, it makes you vulnerable to a painful identity crisis if you burn out, get laid off, or retire. Individuals in these situations frequently suffer anxiety, depression, and despair. By claiming back some time for yourself and diversifying your activities and relationships, you can build a more balanced and robust identity in line with your values.

The Toolbox Strategy: How To Become Uniquely Valuable

After having just dropped out of university, at 19-years-old; I received a line of advice that changed how I made every decision in my career…

How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You) — Wait But Why

Our career path is how we spend our time, how we support our lifestyles, how we make our impact, and even sometimes how we define our identity. Let’s make sure we’re on the right track.

Chasing life goals is a recipe for disaster – so try these tiny experiments instead

Whether its our careers, health or relationships, we often set the bar too high and end up feeling disappointed when it doesn’t work out. Try this new way of thinking … and you may just see some real results

The Truth About Finding a Satisfying Career

Why linking your work to your interests can do more harm than good

Why ‘Follow Your Passion’ Is the World’s Worst Career Advice

The popular "follow your passion" advice has become an overused and generic phrase. Below is another method that may just do the trick in helping people's careers.

20 years in, a "professional" rollout, and only 2k streams. This was my last hurrah and I’m feeling defeated.

325 votes, 326 comments. I’m struggling to process a massive disconnect and need some perspective from other career artists. I’ve been in the…

Moral Ambition: Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER - FROM THE 2025 BBC REITH LECTURER A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE SUMMER 2025 'Gives us hope, humour and guidance at a time when all are in short supply' TIMOTHY SNYDER 'The rare read that might actually help you become a better person' ADAM GRANT THE ANTIDOTE TO APATHY FROM THE INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR RUTGER BREGMAN Every day we're bombarded with methods, mantras and life hacks that promise us wellness and prosperity - while time and talent remain some of our most squandered resources. The average full-time worker will spend 80,000 hours at their job: are you making the most of them? Do you truly believe in what you do, day in, day out? What if you want to do something more with your limited time on the planet? Internationally bestselling author Rutger Bregman shows us that with moral ambition - the will to make the world a wildly better place - we can be both idealistic and successful, and change the world along the way. Uncovering the qualities that made the great change-makers of history so effective, he shows how we too can lend our talents to the biggest challenges of our time, from climate change to inequality to the next pandemic. With moral ambition, we can do more than be on the right side of history: we can make history itself. This book won't make your life easier, but it should make it more meaningful. The question is: what will you do with it? As the 2025 BBC Reith Lecturer, Rutger Bregman will present 'Moral Revolution', a four part series: -A Time of Monsters -How To Start a Moral Revolution -A Realist's Utopia -Zoom Out Available to listen on BBC Four

Going to university does not broaden the mind

But going straight from school to work narrows it

How to waste your career, one comfortable year at a time

If you are an average 30 yr old engineer, let's say you want to retire reasonably by the time you are 60. A year wasted at a poor job or role is equivalent to you throwing away 3.3% of your career. The older you get, the steeper your loss is.

How to Grow Old: Bertrand Russell on What Makes a Fulfilling Life

“Make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life.”

Trick Yourself Into Creating a Fresh Start

How to get the feeling of a clean slate without a major event or life change

3 Mental Shifts Highly Successful People Make Right Before Their Careers Take Off

Prioritize "clarity over cleverness."

How to Stay Productive When You Hate Your Job

Strategies for making it through the day when you’re bored, miserable, and still have work to do

No One Dies in this Dystopia

I am all done with grading for the semester just past, but the work sticks to me in a way I can’t yet manage to fling off.