Your skills will not make you happy.

When I was frantically trying to figure out what could possibly do with my life after academia, I read article after article telling me to list out my skills and then figure out who might need those.

That was, perhaps, the most demoralizing part of the whole experience.

I didn’t get into academia because I had the skills to succeed there, although having those skills didn’t hurt. I got into academia because I had a passion for writing and reading, because I wanted to change the world for the better, because I wanted what I imagined the life of a professor to be like: deep and intelligent conversations around every corner, huge swathes of time to sit and think.

Yes, it was naïve, but finding out that’s not really what happens in this day and age didn’t change the fact that that’s what I was looking for, the kind of life I wanted to have. And here I was being told all of my passion, all of my idealism, was nothing except a vehicle for my ability to write a coherent sentence.

I’m here to tell you: It’s not true.

Yes, your skills matter. My writing skills got me in the door of all of my jobs outside of academia, because they’re what my employers needed to fulfill their missions.

But you won’t be any happier outside of academia than you were inside of it if the life you’re leading isn’t any more attuned to your passions and your ideals.

So start there — what is it you deeply believe? What do you think you’re called to do in this world? What is the work that’s yours to do, the work that isn’t going to get done if you don’t step up and do it? What are you passionate about? What moves you? What gets you excited?

Do your best to be specific. Teaching is really broad and even vague — but “I want to help people learn to think critically about the experience of women in 21^st century America” can get you somewhere.

Once you’ve articulated your passion, listing your skills to figure out how you can serve that vision just makes good sense. But the skills have to be in service to your passion, not the other way around.

You are far more than your skills. You are, in fact, the site where great work is waiting to be born. So begin there, where it matters.