4 Rules for Identifying Your Life’s Work

There are four basic career patterns:

1. Linear careers, which climb steadily upward, such as the "corporate ladder" or the billionaire entrepreneur.
2. Steady-state careers involve staying at one job and growing in expertise.
3. Transitory careers are ones in which people jump from job to job or field to field, looking for new challenges.
4. Spiral careers are like a series of mini careers. People spend many years developing in a profession, then shift fields seeking work that builds on the skills of their previous mini careers.

• An unhealthy passion is an obsessive passion, characterised by intense interest, negative mood and low concentration during the activity, and unhappiness when not engaged in the activity.
• Conversely, a healthy passion, also called "harmonious passion", is characterised by happiness, good concentration and a "flow state" while doing it.

While looking for something in which you are intensely interested, go further and ask "Does this job or career bring out the best in me?"