Are you creative? Then “Do What You Love” is terrible advice

Is there a more common piece of career advice today than “do what you love?” I’ve heard it for ages. I certainly think that being in a bad job can be soul-crushing experience, and that liking your work lightens your life considerably.

But in the course of studying the lives of creative people, I’ve come to the ironic conclusion that for writers, artists, and just about everyone, “do what you love” is actually terrible advice.

Here’s what’s wrong with it: it’s unnecessary.

The problem with the “do what you love” mantra is in how we follow it, which is with a single-mindedness that carries unnecessary risk. We interpret “do what you love” to mean “Do only what you love and nothing else,” and the implication of that is that if you don’t practice this kind of creative monogamy, you’re being untrue to yourself. A corollary encourages, “Don’t worry about the details and practicalities.” The universe will reward your passion and belief in yourself. It also means assuming all the financial risk of a risky career move. The reality is that creative work is terribly funded, and the odds of making a steady living from it are very very small. Being fully exposed to that kind of instability can make you less creative, not more so.

Finally, and most important, history teaches us that the sacrificial creative career is romantic but uncalled-for.

Many famous creatives don’t give up their day jobs until they’d published several books, and others never give them up. They found that the several hours a day in the early morning, the weekend squirred away in the library or studio, and the occasional vacation provided enough time to do their work, and to get fulfillment from it.

Their example also shows that the discipline of creating under stable but still constrained circumstances is actually valuable for your creative career. It teaches you how to work steadily, to strike a balance between inspired and productive, to rely a bit less on an unreliable Muse and more on your self. As Chuck Close said, “Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.” Given the “do what you love” ideal, it’s ironic that people who have long creative lives actually learn to treat their creative work like… well, a regular job.

The point is this. Lots of people produce their first notable works when they’re primarily employed in other fields. And many of them continue to hold other jobs until they’re secure enough in their new careers to make the jump with little risk. By the time they become full-time creatives, they understand the market. They have an agent and publisher / gallery / speakers’ bureau that represents them. They have a fan base. They have critics who champion their work.

They reached this point by not taking huge financial risks, and learning to produce steadily.

In other words, they’re not making a leap of faith, they’re leaving one job for another job. They’re not trusting the universe; they’re trusting the first advance on a three-book deal.

[A longer version of this essay appears at The Rest Project.]