Are you longing for more purpose in your work, but don’t know how to get it? That was me for my entire 18-year corporate career. Meaning and purpose were continually elusive and impossible to attain, and I didn’t know why. Now, having transformed my own corporate career, running a business, becoming a therapist and serving as a career coach, I understand why I was blocked from experiencing purpose and deep fulfillment in my work.
The first thing we need to address to get on the path to experiencing more purpose in our work is to answer this: Do you have a job or a calling? These are two distinct professional dimensions and they’re not at all the same. Thousands of people confuse them, or want both at the same time (which is not possible) and many long for more purpose in their work, yet have not done the internal or external work required to build more meaning and purpose in the work they do or the outcomes they’re pursuing.
Years ago, I read a very thought-provoking article by Michael Lewis, columnist for Bloomberg News, about the difference between a calling and a job. He had some powerful insights. Two ideas struck me hard:
- “There’s a direct relationship between risk and reward. A fantastically rewarding career usually requires you to take fantastic risks.”
- “A calling is an activity that you find so compelling that you wind up organizing your entire self around it—often to the detriment of your life outside of it.”
A job, on the other hand, is something that can give you a semblance of “security” and “stability” and can allow you to use your talents in productive ways, giving you the money to do what you want to do outside of work. A great job can support you to contribute in ways and outcomes that matter to you. But it’s not a calling.
A calling chooses you (you don’t choose it) and it won’t let go. It compels you to contribute, achieve and serve in ways that you often would never have initially imagined.
In the end, you can’t go from a purposeless job (that simply pays the rent and brings no joy or fulfillment) to a tremendously meaningful one in one fell swoop.
Before you can claim your “purpose” and connect it with the work you do, you have to understand what you care about, what you have already created and why, and power up your commitment to bringing more purpose into your life and work starting today, regardless of the situation you’re in.
From my view, “purpose” can be defined simply as the motive, motivation, cause, impetus, basis and justification for the work you do. For people who are longing for more purpose in their work, it’s typically because they’ve made money and salary (or even advancement) the sole purpose of working. While money is essential for most of us, millions of people—especially as they age and mature—find doing work solely for the money for years upon years can end up feeling empty and unfulfilling. There’s no compelling cause for the work except for making money and that can get very old and feel lifeless for people. Most of us want more from the work we do that takes up more hours than anything else in our lives.
Often, too, people have repurposed a skill set that they learned in college but never had a close connection with, so their work doesn’t light them up or make them feel they are leveraging who they really are, authentically, in their work.
As an example, for my 18 years of corporate life in publishing and marketing, I can say that in the beginning I worked for the money and the financial security. But as I hit 40, I deeply longed for something else—more purposeful work that would contribute in a deeper way to the world and would allow me to use skills and talents that were more exciting to me and offer more value than I could by marketing and selling other peoples’ products and programs. And if I were going to miss being in the fabric of my two children’s lives because I was working all the time, it darn well better be for something that mattered to me more than this work.
Finally, after a brutal layoff from my corporate vice president role, I snapped and said, “I’m done with all of this!” I decided to take the plunge to commit to doing a new type of work that would allow me to “help people, not hurt people and be hurt” as I felt so many of my corporate jobs did. As I pursued that new path over the years, I became clearer that the ultimate purpose of my work that would make me happiest and most fulfilled would be to contribute to the advancement of women in business around the globe. Now, everything I do in my business is tied to that purpose and feeding that goal.
What I’ve seen in career coaching professionals for 14 years is that we cannot go from unhappy, purposeless work to a thrilling and meaningful career in one step.
There are three fundamental steps to igniting passion within you (rather than searching for it outside of yourself) and then learning how to leverage that to build a happier career. They are:
Build an intimate relationship with yourself.
It’s fascinating how very little most people know about themselves. They can’t answer the most basic yet vital questions such as:
- What are your natural talents, gifts and skills that come easy to you?
- What outcomes do you love supporting?
- How does your work stand out from others’?
- What job have you loved the most and hated the most, and why?
- What are your non-negotiables and your values and standards of integrity that you won’t compromise on?
- What have you done in your life that made your heart sing?
If you want a rewarding career that ignites passion within you, first you need to get to know yourself much better than you do. Uncover what you love in life, what you hate, what makes you mad in the world, the natural talents and skills you want to use, the outcomes you care about, the kinds of people you respect and more. Answer these 11 questions as a start.
Stop looking too far down the chain of destiny.
Winston Churchill made a statement that I believe holds true about our careers. He said: “It’s a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.”
It’s not effective (and you’ll make some big mistakes and missteps) if you try to choose a career direction just from the mere idea or sound or look of it—to hang all your hopes of success onto an idea that’s never been tested for you. You have to grasp the first link. I call that mistake “glomming onto the wrong form (of a job or career) before understanding the essence of what you really want.”
For example, so many professionals tell me they want to dump their current corporate careers and:
- Become an author and write a bestselling book
- Run a bed and breakfast
- Become an actor or singer
- Work in a non-profit
- Work as a teacher
- Work as a lawyer
- Be a public (motivational) speaker
The truth is, most of these people have no idea what the physical, living reality and identities of these jobs are, and if they’d really be a fit. (Usually, they aren’t.) Secondly, you’ve invested a lot of time in your current career. Are you sure that chucking the entire baby out with the bathwater is what’s right for you now, or are there just certain elements you want to walk away from and others that you could preserve that would make you happy?
Start thinking more deeply about the why behind these desired roles that you admire. Do you want to be a respected author so you can finally feel validated and recognized for your views, or because you want to make a difference to people in a bigger way? Do you want to become a lawyer because you think that will bring status and money to you, or perhaps you can finally advocate for a particular cause and help people who are struggling to overcome a specific challenge? Do you want to sing or act because you are deeply missing being involved in creative activities that brought you joy in your childhood?
Look more deeply and uncover the “essence” of what you really want, and then start “trying on” new initiatives through small microsteps that will enable you to experience that essence. Don’t overly attached to how it has to look.
Before looking too far ahead and saying, “This is right for me!” without having any clue if it is, start with one tiny step to move toward doing something that lights you up and makes your heart beat faster. A hobby, a cause, taking a class—engage in one action that makes you feel more alive. Don’t worry now if it’s going to be your “career.” Just start doing something new and different that will allow your passion to grow from the inside and begin to see how you change from it.
Finally, strengthen yourself.
To build an amazing and purposeful career, people need much stronger boundaries than they have today. They need to learn how to say “yes” to what they want, and “no” to what is no longer tolerable or possible, and potentially upset others in the process. They need to be able to separate from people and things that are draining them of their life’s precious energy and time, and who don’t believe in thrilling careers or that you deserve one.
And they need to start prioritizing this journey of self-discovery and self-actualization over so much else that they’re engaged in that’s exhausting and demoralizing them every day. If you can’t say “no” to what isn’t working, then you won’t be able to say “yes” to what you want to create.
So many professionals who have lost touch with their inner joy and passion and have deeply unsatisfying careers are what I call “perfectionistic overfunctioners.” They are enmeshed with others and wedded to living life in a way that puts their needs, wants and desires last. These people are habituated to being overwhelmed and exhausted with all their responsibilities and find it impossible to make time for what they want. It actually scares them to put themselves first.
If you don’t start strengthening yourself now and learn how to prioritize your own needs and wants, you will simply never get out of the gate in terms of experiencing more purpose, passion, reward and impact in your career.
Ready for the next challenge? Click here for Day 3: Remember what drives you.
Miss a challenge? Click here for Day 1: Define purpose.
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For more from Kathy Caprino about building a purposeful and fulfilling career, visit her Amazing Career Project course and her Career Breakthrough Coaching programs.
Originally published at Forbes