Finding a job is one thing — and an important thing, to be sure. But unless we spend the time and energy to figure out what we really want to be doing, we’re going to land right back where we are now: frustrated, restless, lost, and unhappy. This is where we talk about how we can uncover the things we most want to do with our lives. It’s also where I test out tools so you don’t have to. Click here for past posts.

And then there was a bolt out of the blue…

It’s easy to think, when you’re searching for the Right Job, the Right Career, your Inner Calling, that one day, somehow, you’re going to get a bolt out of the blue and you’ll know what it is. And then, knowing fully what it is, you can set about making it happen.

That’s not usually how it works, unfortunately.

Most of the time, we encounter or search out a job or a career that’s simply better than where we are – more in line with who we are and what we need. And so we make the jump. After a period of time, we start noticing all the things about this job or career that don’t quite fit, that rub us the wrong way. It’s tempting, at that point, to think we did it wrong. But we didn’t. What we did was take the Next Right Step – and now there’s another Next Right Step to take.

Calling as incrementalism

If you have an experience that hands you your calling wholesale, then I bow down before you (and not so secretly envy you).

Most of us, however, get to our calling incrementally and experientially by trying things and then noticing what does – and doesn’t – work. Every time we find a new job or a new career, we’re refining the process, taking with us more and more knowledge about what does and doesn’t work for us.

Most people balk at this process

It’s true – figuring out your calling and your career is going to take the rest of your life.

But that’s only a problem if you buy into the notion – built into our very high schools with the notion of guidance and career counselors – that you were supposed to figure it out once and for all and then be happy. (As a teenager!)

In fact, that assumption keeps more people paralyzed than any other I know of – because people assume that if they aren’t happy, it’s because they’ve done something wrong, instead of being part of the natural evolution of a human life and career.

Frankly, I don’t think I trust my 20 year old self to have figured out the rest of my life. She was a sweet kid, sure, but not so much on the life experience. Chances are, your 20-year-old self was the same.

It can be an expansive process

If you think about it as the natural evolution of a life, then it’s not a shameful remediation but an exciting journey. Where will you end up? Who knows? But following the bread crumbs is likely to be an exciting process. You’re learning more about yourself and the world every day – and what else is a life for?

The problem, for most people, is having no idea where to begin that journey – because they’ve never thought about or explored anything else. That goes double in academia, with its highfalutin assumptions about the intellectual wasteland that is the rest of the world. (Supposedly, anyway. In reality, not so much.)

To help the academically inclined figure out where else they might be looking – and where the Next Right Step might be hiding – Jo VanEvery and I have cooked up a free teleclass that will give you a high-level method of figuring out what your options are. To learn more, just click here.