How to find your calling: difficult, but possible

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

If you're looking for your true passion, you've tried many different activities, but still haven't found a favorite. Maybe you will never find it. But you can create …

Why is “Do what you love” advice is not the best

It's hard to figure out what you love to do, to find something to do that makes you live. For example, I love to write. Sometimes, when some interesting topic captures me, when I learn something new and share it with other people, it seems to me that there is nothing better. But when there is no mood, it seems that I do not like it at all.

I recently started editing video. I can sit for hours editing a video, selecting frames and music, and it is not so easy to tear me away from this activity. But when you need to cut a long boring video, everything is not so great. So do I really love editing?

When we say “A business that you really love,” something immediately appears that you can do all your life, something that you will not get tired of. Can you imagine that you are doing one thing, even a loved one, for the rest of your life?

We are told that we need to love what we do, that in this case we will work better. As Steve Jobs said during a talk at Stanford University:

The only way to do something great is to love what you do. If you still haven't found such a case, keep looking. Do not give up.

Maybe it is so. But the very idea that you should do what you love is somewhat limiting for you. What if you're not sure if you love something? Sometimes you like it and sometimes you don't. Should they do it or quit and look for “that one thing”?

Whether you have found it or not, you must admit that it is not at all easy. So maybe it's better to forget about this rule, not strain to find what you really love, and just love what you do? Here are three stories of successful creative people on how to find your calling, a job that makes sense for you.

Forget talent, create a business you love

Software developer Katrin Owen tried a lot of activities until she realized that this way she would not find a work for life. For several years, Katherine tried to reveal her talents, trying herself in different fields.

I think, among other things, I wanted to be unusual, but what I really longed for was to find my passion and feel the satisfaction that comes with achievement.

Catherine Owen

Each new occupation occupied her until some difficulties arose, after which Katherine decided that she simply did not have the ability for this business, and was looking for something new.

I believed in a genetic explanation for genius. In the fact that it is enough to accidentally stumble upon your business and you become the key that fits the lock perfectly.

Catherine Owen

Many of us think that passion is something that will arise as soon as you see and try something. No one thinks that it can take years of work and overcoming difficulties, that passion will slowly flare up in the process.

This is often the case in life. To have a real passion for something, you must overcome difficulties and pump your skills.

Passion arises when you give enough time and attention to something to achieve a depth of understanding and delve into all the nuances. Talent is bullshit. Skills can be purchased. You are responsible for your passion.

Catherine Owen

Through practice hard enough to challenge you, you will develop skills and your passion will grow with them.

Hating your job is not the worst thing that can be

By realizing that passion does not necessarily arise from the beginning, you gain more freedom. Understanding the fact that you can ignite passion and develop skills in any endeavor gives you the freedom to choose your profession.

Now you will not give up at the first difficulties, thinking that this is simply not your business. And if so, why should they do it? You can start any project, take up any new business, realizing that although the pleasure of the process forces you to continue, it is the difficulties that can make this business the passion of your whole life.

It can be hard to come to terms with the fact that you are doing something you hate or, worse yet, have to do what you hate, and hope that the skills you learn will awaken the passion for the occupation.

I think everyone has a mixture of admiration and disgust for people who have worked in a job they don't like for so long that they start to love it.

Basecamp CEO Jason Fried wrote about this issue. He said that many people who founded companies or launched new products were more inspired by the disgusting state of affairs than by the love of what they did.

People love to romanticize their motivation and story. They talk about what matters now and forget about the motives that drove them in the beginning. Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp, the co-founders of Uber, didn't create the service because they loved transportation and logistics. They started because they were pissed off by the inability to take a taxi to San Francisco. Maybe Kalanick loves Uber now, but then he was just enraged by the inability to get home.

It may be difficult to correlate this idea with the desire to do what you love, but …

Hating the status quo, along with a vision of how things can be, will lead you to success faster than loving what you are working on.

Jason Fride

Doubt, but only as long as you try

Graphic designer Sean McCabe has worked in a variety of fields, from fixing computers to designing logos, from podcasting to writing books. But the biggest leap in his career came when he, as a designer, focused on handwritten fonts.

Sean used his experience to help other people understand that focusing on one area of interest is the best way to make a name for yourself and gain popularity with a specific audience.

But for most of us, this is a daunting prospect. After all, if you have to choose one niche and devote all your time and attention to a business, how can you choose one business from all and where is the guarantee that this is exactly what you need?

Most people are afraid to pick one niche because they think, “I am more than this. There is so much more I can do. The world should see everything I'm good at."

Sean McCabe

To overcome fear, Sean suggests treating a period of full concentration on one thing as a season of work. Just because you are completely focused on one thing now does not mean that you will not be able to do something else later.

But without this period of focusing on one thing, without full, unconditional commitment, you will never know whether you can rekindle a passion for the chosen business or not.