The reason you’re alive. Your personal mission in life. Your raison d’etre.
If you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, take a couple seconds to complete this quick quiz:
If you answered "yes" to all of these questions, congratulations! There’s a good chance that you have achieved what the Buddhist’s call "Right Livelihood."
If you haven’t yet found the work you were meant to do, keep reading. You’re about to Find Your Calling – and when you find that calling that is uniquely yours, your life will be transformed. Guaranteed.
"The way to find out about your happiness," said renowned mythology scholar Joseph Campbell, "is to keep your mind on those moments when you feel most happy, when you are really happy – not excited, not just thrilled, but deeply happy."
Now ask yourself how you feel each day as you get ready for work. It probably sounds something like this.
Your alarm clock buzzes you awake. You drag yourself out of bed, dreading another day at a job that’s high on stress and short on satisfaction.
You don’t need an alarm clock because you can’t wait to get out of bed and dive into another workday where your work feels more like play.
Maybe you think it’s too late. Maybe you believe that you’ve somehow missed your Calling and that… well… you’re not getting any younger.
Beverly Goodman Park from Montague, Massachusetts is a perfect example of what I’m talking about:
Beverly was close to 60 when her marriage ended. At an age when most people are contemplating retirement, Beverly decided to pursue a long-held dream of becoming an attorney. A lot of people told her she was too old. Undaunted, Beverly went to law school while working full-time, passed the bar exam, and at 61, landed a job at a law firm, explaining, "I thought this age stuff was baloney."
So as you see, just because you’re all grown up, it doesn’t mean you can’t find your own life mission and live it.
When you discover your Calling, you may find your life taking you in unexpected directions.
You see, anyone can get a 9-to-5 (or maybe for you it’s more like 8-to-late) J-O-B. A job is something that pays the bills but all too often fails to feed the spirit. And when your spirit is starved for meaningful satisfying work, your happiness suffers. But that’s not all.
Did you know that people who love what they do for a living actually live longer?
That’s right. Research conducted by Duke University found that out of 788 factors considered, the top predictor of a long life in the U.S. – even more than good health habits or good genes – was found to be work satisfaction!
I guess it’s not surprising then that the word "Vocation" comes from the Latin word "vocare" which means "to call." And when respond to your TRUE Calling you feel renewed, fulfilled, and deeply happy.
Do you believe you were put on this earth to sit in commuter traffic, to suffer through the performance evaluations and reorganizations, to have to answer to a boss that is well… you know….
Were you really created to spend your life having the Sunday night blues?
If the idea of loving what you do appeals to you, the way I see it… here are your options: You can keep plodding along week after week hoping that inspiration will somehow, someway suddenly strike and – in a flash – your true calling will be revealed.
Or, you can make a promise to yourself right here, right now to take the first bold step on behalf of your dreams.
By the way, in case you don’t know me, I’m Valerie Young, the "Dreamer in Residence" here at Changing Course. It’s been nine years since I abandoned my corporate cubicle and my 90-mile-day commute to launch Changing Course.
Today I am doing work and living a life I love. And I want you to too.
That’s why I went out and pooled together some of the best and the brightest career change experts around to create "Find Your Calling – The Handbook For People Who Still Don’t Know What They Want To Be When They ‘Grow Up.’"
Experts like Barbara Sher, Barbara Winter, Patrick Combs, and Nicholas Lore, have generously allowed me to share with you excerpts, exercises, and techniques from their thought-provoking books. Through their collective wisdom, experience, and know-how you’ll get to benefit from their step-by-step approach to uncovering your gifts, your passion, your true calling.
Simply stated, "Find Your Calling" will help you discover the work you were born to do.
Barbara Sher, author of five best-selling books including "I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was" starts "Find Your Calling" with… a bang by..
Then on page six she reveals the ONE (and only one) gauge you should use to determine whether you should be doing what you’re currently "doing."
On page 23, Barbara will guide you through the steps you need to take if your family objects to your following your Find Your Calling.
Barbara wraps up her contributions to Find Your Calling by exploring the notion that "Life isn’t short… it’s wide." This is where you find out why all those people who insist that you have to settle on just one calling don’t know what they’re talking about! Instead Barbara will show you how you can have them all!
Barbara’s sage and easy to follow advice makes Find Your Calling an unexpected treasure. But that’s just the beginning. Seminar leader, enthusiastic advocate of self-bossing, and author of "Making a Living Without a Job," Barbara Winter shares her winning ways for finding your lost passion. And later she tells you the one thing you absolutely MUST focus on if you want to Find Your Calling.
So I went out and found even MORE experts, perspectives, and voices. People like… Read more…