Finding your vocation is crucial to attaining wellbeing. The biggest chunk of your energy and time is spent at work, and if you’re not doing what’s true to your nature at work, you’ll naturally be miserable. Work will be nothing but a burden. So here are three steps that will help you find your true calling, your vocation.
You can just watch my video on this topic, or read the post below it.
Finding one’s vocational dharma is so often a struggle because society teaches people from an early age that what they really need is money, with secondary goals of stability and respect. In other words, just about everyone is taught from birth to choose the fantasy paradigm. Instead of teaching people to do what they’re good at doing and to help them develop their unique talents and inclinations, normally parents, culture and the school system will treat people like blank slates, giving them a one-size-fits-all education, and encourage them to make as much money as possible.
First Step – Clear Away the Confusion
The biggest obstacle you face in finding your true calling, your vocation, is taking the wrong things into consideration, namely money, prestige and power. These have nothing to do with your essence and thus must have no influence on your decision process.
To think that you should ignore your nature because it won’t be easy to make money is to quit before you even start. Guaranteed fail, guaranteed unhappiness at work. Don’t go there.
Forget social pressure and pride. It’s not about what your parents (or anyone else) want you to do. It doesn’t matter if there are five generations of military men in your family if you’re not into military life. It’s not about social status either. Maybe society doesn’t appreciate a janitor or waiter, but these are perfectly noble professions. A person who has the psychophysical nature to do the job of a janitor and is doing it is far better off than the person doing the job of a lawyer but whose true psychophysical nature is that of a musician. The janitor can easily find peace and joy in his job; the misplaced lawyer will always feel frustrated and unrealized.
When meditating on what you’d like to do, remove from your equation any external factors. It’s about who you are, not about practical concerns. Those will come later.
Second Step – Just Because You Like It, Doesn’t Mean It’s Your Career
Don’t just think about what you like to do. You may like to do a lot of things. Instead, think what is that one thing you can’t help but do. Toward what type of activity do you naturally gravitate?
For example, you may like travelling, but that doesn’t mean you should become a travel blogger. You may like cooking, but not have the calling to be a professional chef.
Find what you keep coming back to, what’s your basic inclination. What interests you the most, ever since you can remember?
Third Step – Spend Some Time Alone
The best thing is to seriously look into your heart and feel your nature. Spend some time alone, in silence, and do some hard thinking. Be brave and willing to accept your true nature. Don’t compromise yourself. And don’t let fear of the future stop you.
Finding your vocation is essential. To spend your working hours doing something not suitable to your psychophysical nature will corrode your chances of happiness. It’s an offense to your person, like keeping your true self locked away.