Finding Your Calling

Nearly everyone wants a career that is emotionally, spiritually, and financially rewarding. But unfortunately, a lot of people never find that professional sweet spot—either because their passion

doesn’t happen to pay well, or because they feel stuck at a job they dislike for the sake of a steady paycheque.

To achieve a fulfilling career, think about how you can find synergy between your professional endeavours and your personal affinities, values, and strengths.

Let your character and values be your compass.

 

Consider your basic personality traits. Are you typically organized or disorganized? Are you patient and deliberate, or do you prefer to see results quickly? Extroverted, or introverted? Analytical, or intuitive?

Most importantly, what are the principles you believe in most strongly?

We can all imagine blatant examples of career mismatches: people who are vegetarians and vegans for ethical reasons shouldn’t become butchers; innumerate individuals are unlikely to thrive as accountants.

But there are many more subtle instances of career misalignment as well. If you like to keep moving and spend much of your time outdoors, a sedentary office job may wear you down. And if you have an artistic flair, you may desire significant creative autonomy, and feel frustrated if your career path doesn’t offer that.

Perseverance and resiliency are essential.

The main difference between a dream and a goal, is that a goal revolves around a concrete and achievable plan. But there is another important distinction: dreams occupy the realm of fantasy, while goals must contend with reality. In dreams, you can envision your own triumphs, but not necessarily the barriers that stand in the way.

In the real world, meaningful success rarely happens overnight—in fact, it often requires years, if not decades. You might have an extraordinary passion for something, but you’ll also be competing against many other individuals and organizations that share your enthusiasm. Almost invariably, you will encounter a great deal of rejection and shortfalls before you experience the thrill of victory. To bring your vision to fruition, you’ll need to remain committed to your goals through thick and thin.

An alternative mental approach to failure or rejection is to remember that your disappointments needn’t define you or even necessarily set you back. You can instead look at them as stepping stones that bring your closer to your final goal by affording you valuable lessons and experience.

Instead of “work-life balance”, think about your life’s work.

Of course, human beings are social animals, and it’s important to make time for family and friends outside of work hours. Your physical and mental health also depend on a healthy diet and regular exercise.

However, the optimal career path for you should bring you enough satisfaction that you believe your time on the job is beneficial to you, and that your work is fully integrated into the life you want. This is one reason why the concept of “work-life balance” is flawed: it implies that a firewall should separate your profession from the rest of your existence, and not that your career endeavours are a vital component of your life.

Instead of trying to achieve equilibrium between work and “life”, consider instead what you’d like to accomplish during your lifetime, and why. If you can’t identify how your current professional trajectory is helping you achieve the long-term goals you’ve set for yourself, then it’s time to contemplate a career change.

How to Keep (For Real) Your Professional New Year’s Resolutions

The standard tale of the unfulfilled new year’s resolution—an ambitious goal that one articulates, commits to, and promptly abandons—has become a cultural cliché in our society. In fact, many fitness professionals joke that January is the busiest month of the year at the gym, whereas February usually brings a normal volume of customers. Regardless of the area in which we see room for self-improvement, thinking of a new year’s resolution is one thing; actually following through is another.

What is true of personal goals is equally true of professional ones—setting a work-related resolution is easy, but actually fulfilling our ambitions requires commitment, perseverance, and consistency.

Friends and colleagues can hold you accountable.

“Will power” needn’t merely be a matter of individual steel and grit; you can enlist the help of others

to hold you accountable for your commitments. If your goal is to keep yourself in better physical shape this year, try joining a running group or scheduling exercise sessions with a friend. If you have particular professional ambitions—such as finishing a project ahead of a fixed deadline—announce them to your colleagues, staff, and anyone else who will listen. Although most people won’t go out of their way to remind you of your shortcomings, the desire to avoid the shame of breaking a public promise can be a powerful motivator.

Set manageable targets.

If you have an ambitious, long-term goal, you may find yourself daunted by the thought of what you need to do in order to reach the finish line, and the massive amount of effort and commitment involved. Instead of approaching a challenge this way, you may instead find it helpful to identify intermediate landmarks.

For instance, if your office is disorganized and you’d like to rectify that, don’t allow the scariness of tidying up an entire room to overwhelm you; aim to keep a corner of your desk clear of clutter, then another corner, etc.

Create a roadmap for yourself, including a clear understanding of the process involved in reaching your final goal, and reward yourself as you surpass each milestone. Of course, you can expect that some days will be easier than others, but remember that even slight progress toward your desired outcome is better than none.

Foster new habits.

As human beings, we all tend to be creatures of habit. This partly explains why committing to a new year’s resolution is so difficult; unless we continue a particular activity long enough to cultivate a new habit, we easily slip back into familiar, comfortable patterns of behaviour. Our habits are like molds that shape our personal characteristics and abilities, and it takes time and dedication to restructure those molds. But fortunately, it can be done.

In the quest to develop new habits, planning and intentionality are valuable allies. Establish your intentions, write them down, and commit them to memory. To help manage your time, set temporal boundaries for yourself—for instance, “I will check my e-mail inbox at 11:00 a.m., but no sooner, and I will finish with that task by 11:20.” Personally, I find it helpful to work in segments of 20-30 minutes, and time myself with a stopwatch.

Don’t let a slight shortfall deter you.

Even after an honest effort, you may find that you’ve fallen short of your new year’s resolution. But don’t let that disappointment dissuade you from setting ambitious goals and pursuing the professional success you desire. Even if you don’t quite attain your goals this time, you will learn valuable lessons that will help you in your next attempt.