What Is It Like to Live Your True Calling?
We’ve all heard that on many occasions and from many luminaries. Believers worship it as the antidote to all their sufferings in life. Cynics criticize it as employer’s sugar-coated propaganda to exploits their workers.
For me, ‘do what you love’ means finding that sweet spot in the intersection of one’s purpose, passion, and talents. Bill George calls it the ‘True North’, while Christians named it the ‘true calling’.
I believe there is transformational power when living one’s true calling, not only because its’ universal fame, but more driven by my own journey, tasting the bitterness and sweetness in searching for betterments. Throughout my adulthood, whenever one or more of the three elements is missing, I got stuck, and sometimes, I got lost. And each time when I strove to get closer to the ‘sweet spot’, I found joy, and I thrived from the inside.
The most recent encounter with my ‘true calling’ was when I started practicing leadership coaching professionally less than a year ago. What convinced me that it was ‘the one’? Well, interestingly, it did it through some mysterious and powerful ways, created changes that I have never experienced before.
Seizing every opportunity to ‘preach’
The early awareness came when I realized that talking about my learning from coaching has become the centre of my conversation with almost anyone I met. Whenever I touch the subject, my eyes lit up, my voice rise, my hands dance, time passed quickly while my excitement doesn’t fade. It was as if I were on a mission to turn everyone into ‘coaching admires’. The funny thing is, it was the reverse with my previous professions that I used to try hard to avoid talking about them…
If there is something you can’t help not talking about it whenever you get a chance, and if it is not ranting about work, there is a sign. It could be your source of energy, the new addition to your identity, or something important to you that gets more valuable through sharing. Whatever it is, it is worth pausing and listening attentively to yourself, as there is ‘gold’ inside.
No more discouraged by what others think
For many who grew up in cultures rewarding obedience and harmony, ‘Do what you love and don’t mind what others’ think’ seems controverting and unpractical. Not to fall into the trap of ‘people pleasing’, getting the stamps of important social kin is vital for young adults to establish their sense of security and self-affirmation. The challenge comes when your heart-desire goes against the mainstream values whilst success yet to be proven. Where can you find the strength to ‘keep calm and carry on’ besides the slogan on the mug?
When I announced that I was leaving a well-paid, highly coveted corporate job to become a professional coach in my mid-thirties, and without a concrete plan or another job at hand, I was bombarded with questioning and opposite remarks from my family and friends. “Why not just do it as a hobby and keep your good job?” “Can’t you do it when you retire and have it all?” The more I listened to others, there more I felt breathless and stuck.
I turned to my coach communities, listening to how experienced coaches crossed the bridges and dealt with their highs and lows, and getting pumped by their enthusiasm. Knowing what to expect helps to counter fear. Seeing the real path ahead and confronting the potential risks along the way helped me to stay centred.
Unlike the true or false questions in exams, there is no right answer in life decisions, and no one is more right or less wrong. When you don’t know who to trust more, trust your heart first, and empower your intuition to lead your rational cells. That is often the time when you need to fight your inertias and choose wisely who you listen to. And sometimes, it means you need to find a new community and new belongings. Through time, your inner strength will grow, and power you through fogs and storms.
Nurturing ‘stability’ in the mist of uncertainty
In a VUCA time like today, choosing to let go stable title and income in exchange for more uncertainty is a mad move from the perspective of many including my old rational self. The old me would have been anxious and jumped into actions. But strangely, when the deal was done, I was neither scared nor in a rush.
Having the purpose of helping others to thrive and knowing that it will always be there for me no matter how the world changes offered me a sense of stability. And believing that I could add more value to others as I practice more created a feeling of freedom that I no longer need to attach to any company brand or be defined by any artificial titles – I am defined by the value I offer, and the rest are means.
To break the chains of uncertainty is to anchor the sense of stability from within. Your ‘true north’ will always be there, pointing you to the same direction wherever you are.
Turning ‘competitors’ to collaborators
Like many of you, I was trained to play the ‘game of competition’ throughout my school years. It got intensified in the business line where ‘beating our competitors and steal their market share’ is the instilled obsession that gets amplified on every occasions. Wherever you look, competition seems to be the main melody at all levels in the world we live in: US vs China, P&G vs Unilever, Oxford vs Cambridge, my peer vs I, etc.
The harsh truth is, no one can find lasting joy when focusing nothing but competing. As soon as you are able to prove that you are ‘the best in the pond’, you immediate jumps into a bigger pond, and the stressful chore going on. The losers are buried in shame, while the winners are locked in loneliness. There is misery at both ends, and that is the nature of this game.
When you surrender to a shared calling that is bigger than any individual’s success, your old ‘competitors’ transform into future collaborators. That is indeed one of the magic tricks of living one’s true calling.
The more alluring question here perhaps is how to find your true calling?
I am afraid there is no short answer. The starting point is to stop looking for answers in others and start searching inwards and connecting with your ‘authentic self’. Get clearer with what your biggest cares are and how you can contribute to these cares. Moreover, challenge your answers on their originality and genuineness, making sure they are really coming from your essence, and not what others want of you.
Robert Kegan defines this level of consciousness as ‘The Self Authoring Mind’. He says at this level, ‘we can define who we are, and not be defined by other people, our relationships or the environment… we are willing to take a constructively critical stance and are willing to question much that has been taken for granted… we can rewrite the scripts to include different values, theories, frameworks and ideologies and actively recreating our frames of reference for living… we realize that we’re always changing, that who we are is something that we can still negotiate.’ (The Evolving Self, Robert Kegan, 1982)
‘The self-authoring mind’ is the place where you can find new threads and new possibilities to life puzzles. From following other’s footstep to authoring your own script, the name of the secret bridge is called ‘introspection’. Imagine every time you question a thought or internalize a new perspective, you lay a brick on the frame of the bridge. Time and time again, you build a habit of reflection and introspection, and eventually you build a bridge for yourself.
Now, how do you feel about ‘do what you love’?For me, a tweak to the saying makes it more resonating: Live your true calling, and the joy will transcend you to new realms.
Dannie Zhuang is an executive coach and leadership development consultant at Linkage Asia, a certified coach by the International Coach Federation, and spent her earlier career in wide-ranging international positions in P&G and Unilever. Growing up in China, she lived and worked in Ireland, the Netherland, UK, Switzerland, and now residing in Singapore with her husband and a little one.
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