Introduction: Feeling Stuck and Wanting More
Do you sometimes have this yearning for more? Like you just know that you’re currently not in the right place, that you’re not living up to your full potential? You just know that you have more to give and you want to share more with the world.
Exploring the Idea of Finding Your Calling
The problem is you just don’t know what that something else is, and you hear these stories about people who have found that thing that they were destined to do.
Navigating the Overemphasis on Finding a Purpose
You remain clueless, and it leaves you feeling like a failure because you feel that you should be able to figure this out, right?
Reframing the Search for Purpose
Well, in this video I’m going to share a few things that I hope will help you to figure out what your thing is. Because ultimately, work isn’t just about making ends meet or paying the bills; it can be about so much more than that, and I know that you know and feel that too.
Introducing Practical Steps to Discover Your Path
I share thoughts, tips, and tactics on changing careers right here on my channel. Now, if you’re not new, if you’ve been here before, thanks so much for popping by again. Good to have you back.
Okay, so now that’s out of the way, let’s talk about this idea of a calling, of finding the work that you are meant to do with your life. I did some Google searches and it confirmed something that I already knew: we are literally obsessed with this idea of finding a purpose, finding a calling, finding this one thing that you’re meant to do with your life. Look at this.
Statistical Overview: The Obsession with Finding Purpose
So, I did a few Google searches:
- How to choose a career path: 423 million results
- How to find your dream job: 783 million results
- How to choose the right career: 1.2 billion results
But once you start talking about things like finding your calling, finding meaningful work, etc., boom, this is what you see:
- How to find my calling: nearly 2.7 billion results
- How to find meaning in your work: nearly 9.5 billion results
- How to find the work you’re meant to do: nearly 12 billion results
Footnote: This is by no means rigorous scientific research, but a lot of research has been done on this topic. For example, by vocational psychologists, and if you’re interested in that, I recommend you go read this book.
Critique of the Singular Passion Narrative
And all of this really is no surprise because that desire for finding one’s purpose is rooted in what makes each and one of us uniquely human. It’s the desire for significance, a desire to do something that matters to you and perhaps even make the world a better place at the same time.
Challenging the One-Size-Fits-All Approach
The problem: we’re approaching it entirely the wrong way. The idea that there is this one thing that you’re meant to do with your career, with your life, is flawed. It’s incorrect, it’s wrong. Now, hear me out. You see, there are two types of people.
So, on the one hand, you have people who have found this thing that they are meant to do with their life, with their career, and these are the people that are most vocal. So, we hear about their stories, how often at a young age they knew what they wanted to do with their life, they found their passion, and they—it’s incredible watching them because they can talk so passionately about that thing and so full of certainty.
That we don’t really tend to think about the other type of people, the second group. So, the second group of people are those people who clearly don’t have that one thing, that they haven’t found that one thing that they’re meant to do with their career or life.
Acknowledging the Plurality of Interests
But what they do have are multiple interests. So, they’re like this and this and this and this. However, they’re not passions. They’re things that these people are interested in, but they wouldn’t say, “Oh, I’m passionate about it.” It’s just something, yeah, I like it, I’m interested in this. And they are plagued by not having found their passion. Those interests, it’s almost like they’re not good enough. They want to have what the other group has as well. So, they want to have that passion.
Reframing Success Beyond Singular Passion
And I don’t see how having multiple interests is actually an incredible starting point for a brilliant career that gets the best out of you. I’ll get to that in a second. But what happens is that this group of people—and, mind you, this is the majority of people—will have some interests here and there, and this and this, but they don’t have this one thing that is just screaming at them, like, “This is what you need to do with your life.”
Embracing the Diversity of Interests
And the fact that they don’t have that one thing leaves this group of people feeling anxious and worried and insecure about what it is that they should be doing with their career. We as a society have glamorized that first set of people and we fail to acknowledge the second set of people—people like you and me—people who haven’t had that unwavering certainty that this is what they’re meant to do with their career or with their life.
Encouraging a Shift in Perspective
And you know what? That’s okay. It’s okay not to have that unwavering certainty. That isn’t the goal. Ultimately, what we’re all after is to find work that gives us that sense of significance. And you can feel that sense of significance without finding this one thing that you’re meant to do.
Proposing a New Approach
So, let’s stop looking at that first set of people and setting them as an example for the rest of us to follow. That’s just way too much pressure and it stops you in your tracks because you have this crazy high and unattainable goal that you have to find this one thing and if you don’t find this one thing then you’re doomed. Let’s reframe things.
The goal isn’t to find that one thing that you’re meant to do. The goal is to find work that intrinsically interests and motivates you so you don’t end up working just for that paycheck. And hey, don’t get me wrong, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with working just for the paycheck. I’m just guessing that seeing that you’re watching a video about how to find work that you’re meant to do, you want your work to be about more than just that paycheck. You know you want to find work that deeply satisfies you, that gives you joy, and it gets the best out of you.
Practical Steps to Discover Your Path
So, how do you then find work that’s intrinsically motivating and interesting? Come, I’ll show you.
You find intrinsically interesting and motivating work in three steps.
Step 1: Identify Your Natural Interests
Start paying attention to the things that you’re drawn to or are interested in. So, forget about finding your passion. Instead of trying to wrack your brain trying to figure out what your big passion in life is, simply ask yourself what things am I naturally drawn to? What are the things I’d actually love to talk about? What things would I love to learn more about just because I’m interested in them? That’s your starting point. Now, I’ve done a whole video to help you with this, so instead of duplicating that video, I suggest you go check it out after you finish watching this video.
Step 2: Engage with Your Interests
Engage with your interests simply because you’ll never know if you’re going to find something intrinsically interesting and motivating by just thinking about it. You have to experience it and feel it with your heart. So, take some time and set up a side project. The bonus here is that that can be a nice distraction from your day job, especially if you really don’t like your day job. It can be a nice distraction to find some meaning or joy outside of your work. But you could also think of things like enrolling in free or paid courses, going to events, reading books about it—anything to engage with that interest and learn more about it and get that feeling of, “Is this something that within my heart I want to do more with?” If you’d like some extra ideas about how to do this, then I suggest you download this career change guide, which you can find on my website. I’ll leave the link below.
Now, this phase is a discovery phase during which things can feel quite random. In fact, that’s quite normal for things to feel random; it’s part of the process because during this phase you’re just exploring these interests and it’s normal to explore more than one interest, and there’s not necessarily a lot of structure to this phase. So, you’ll be following, engaging with this one interest and figuring out, exploring if this is something that you want to build a career around. And at the same time, you’ll be doing that with another interest, so it can feel overwhelming, it can feel。
