Monday morning. How did it feel to get out of bed and anticipate another week?
Much of your answer will depend on how you choose to see the work you do.
Job
If you see your work as a job, you consider it primarily as something you do for money. That’s not to say that, at a level, you don’t enjoy it or don’t get along with some of your colleagues. But the chances are you have little real engagement to it.
What’s important is that you earn the money you need to finance your life.
When this job is done, you’ll hope to get another of the same. You live for the weekend, for holidays and to retire.
Career
Having a career means that somewhere along the way – at school, or university perhaps – you hit on a chosen field within which you wanted to work. A profession maybe like accountancy, or law. Or teaching, or science, or medicine, or business management.
Whatever, study and training have probably been an aspect of your journey to date. Progression is important; there’s a strong sense of the career ladder and you want to get as high up it as you can. In fact, a lot of your motivation is about getting more or better, whether that’s in the shape of salary or benefits or any of the other outward trappings of career success.
When your current position comes to an end, you’ll want a move that signifies progression or at least one that you can position as such on your CV.
Calling
When what you do for a living feels like a calling to you, work is its own reward. You turn up and do what you do because you love it. It means something to you beyond the here and now.
You bring something of yourself to the world, and the world needs it. Whether that’s your entrepreneurialism, or your unique writing voice; whether you’re finding the antidote for a serious disease or are developing the prototype for a new invention. Whatever, how you choose to do it will be pretty unique to you.
Sure, you want to be paid for your work, but that’s an outcome; a consequence. The primary thing is the work itself. In fact, you enjoy what you do so much and it’s such a part of you that the idea of retiring seems a bit strange to you.
So, Monday mornings, like any other mornings are other exciting days to work on your thing.
So, which is yours: Job, Career, or Calling?
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Twitter: IAC_Heather
This took a bit of thought for me. My career choice was accounting related and while I still put that schooling and degree to use today, other aspects of my work are ‘callings.’ Coaching, teaching, project management, product launch – these are things that I was just called to do and I love it.
Heather Villa´s last blog ..Weekend Reading- My fav’s from this week- 6-25-10
Hmmmm. Interesting comment, Heather. I think it highlights some of the nuance of this stuff. So many “new agers” preach at us to “follow our calling” like it would be something completely separate from the paths we’ve already followed. Often it’s about bringing our own special meaning to our current career fields, like I know you’re doing.
Good on you!
Twitter: eduardezeanu
Smart! I usually only use the concepts of job and career. But taking it to the next level and calling it a… calling, makes a lot of sense.
I remember reading a study once which said that more people die of heart attack Monday mornings than any other time. Makes you wonder…
Eduard @ People Skills Decoded´s last blog ..How confident people talk
Wow! I hadn’t seen that stuff about Monday mornings, Eduard, but it does make perfect sense. The heart just finally giving up the fight. Sad, eh?
I think it does help to put the idea of calling into the mix of work. No matter what work we’re doing, if we’re thoroughly engaged in it, we just fly!
Twitter: bluepop13
I like how you put this and it makes a lot of sense. It’s a shame that so many people just go to work each day and are miserable for so long and don’t even try to find something else they could enjoy more.
It’s truly amazing when you do find what you love enough that you enjoy doing it for the fact that you’re doing it and that money is just the consequence.
This post reminds me of what I read somewhere in the blogosphere about a job standing for just over broke.
Very cool post. Guest what, it’s going on Twitter AND Facebook.
Eric´s last blog ..Get To Know Me Better: Ask Me Any 2 Questions You Want
Thank you so much, Eric. Great comment too.
I like your point about a job standing for just over broke. Like you, I think it’s sad that people can spend so much time at work and be miserable in the process, not giving themselves the choice to have a different experience.
At the end of the day so much is really in the mind and how you see what it is that you’re doing.
Thanks again, Eric.
Twitter: bluepop13
Christine,
The problem I see is people aren’t upset enough to do something about their problem. Sure they’re upset, just not enough to take a different course of action.
I guess so many people “like” being miserable?
Eric´s last blog ..Blogging Better- The Two Simple Ways To Do So
Hi Eric,
I was having this exact conversation in the coffee shop with someone today. Why is it when people are unhappy about their lives, they nevertheless won’t change? We concluded, as you have, that many people like being miserable. Additionally, that the effort required to change is too great for some people to even contemplate, so they stay stuck. Wow!
Twitter: RyanHanzel
Great post
I think being a soldier I am in a career field with very nice benefits but I don’t enjoy it. It pays the bills so just seems like a very good job until I find my calling which will make my financial woes disappear while I love serving my place in society.
Ryan Hanzel´s last blog ..The importance of interaction and loyalty
Calling! All the way.
Interestingly though Christine, I didn’t realise I was already kinda doing my calling until a few months ago. For a long time I saw it as a job but recently something has clicked and I’ve realised that it’s actually a calling.
I love where you said about a calling being where “You bring something of yourself to the world, and the world needs it.” I hope to that will become true soon.
What about you I wonder?
How lovely, Ben. I’ve sensed something different about how you talk about your job; you’ve just explained what.
Also, I think you’re already giving something of yourself that the world needs. Might change what it looks and feels like over time, of course, but my take is that it’s already happening through your blog and the great work you’re doing there.
Me? I think there are people in the world who are either already thinking differently about life and work or will do so soon. There’s a real backlash, I think, happening against all the social constraints that are in place. Cutbacks and an even tougher economic environment will only spur that even more. People need inspiration that it’s possible to live their lives from the place of being their best selves and that indeed they can do so profitably. And indeed they need the practical support to make that happen for them. Because that has been my journey, I hope I offer that.
Twitter: HeavenandEl
Absolutely, definitely 100% a calling. Funnily enough, I was thinking about this (although not in those sensible, well-constructed terms) this morning. I woke up with a body that felt like it had been steam-rollered as I slept thanks to a common cold virus. Having not had the usual pre-cold warnings it came as something of a surprise. But then I was reflecting on actually, despite the protests from my limbs, it was a pleasure to be up. And this led to the conclusion that you’re getting at. Funny eh?
Eleanor Edwards´s last blog ..Held hostage by the muse
How interesting, Eleanor. Synchronicity is a wonderful thing
And your story just talks to my point exactly. Thank you so much.
Twitter: jonprial
Great post! I often talk about Job vs. Career, but the Calling thought adds a whole new dimension. For me, doing something you enjoy is most important – no point having a job that’s a drudgery (if possible). Also, people might choose to step away from a career for some period of time and have a job due to family or life needs,
The key of course, is to be self-aware of where you might be on the Job, Career, Calling scale. Thanks for the new thought process here.
Jon Prial´s last blog ..Your Next Job with No Sleight of Hand
Pleasure, Jon, and thanks for your comment.
Your point about choice is key. People may indeed step away from a career or calling in order to tactically support themselves while they attend to other things in life. Also, jobs and careers can take on the energy of callings if we choose to see meaning in what we’re doing beyond the immediate tasks themselves. I think of a young customer service call centre guy I knew a few years ago. Some might say that these jobs are today’s version of the old factories. Not him. He saw his role as being about making his customers’ lives easier. How he dealt with “his” customers reflected this. He got into work early each day and was the life and soul of the office. His enthusiasm rubbed off on his colleagues who all learned from him. Who would have thought it of one of those environments, eh?
Twitter: jonprial
Your call centre guy should be a poster child for Seth Godin’s “Linchpin”. Love it!
Jon Prial´s last blog ..Your Next Job with No Sleight of Hand
I haven’t read Linchpin, Jon, but from what I’ve heard you’d be absolutely right. I hadn’t thought of my chap in that context. Thanks for the thought!
Twitter: JulieWalraven
Hi Christine, I hadn’t seen your post yet, but mine this morning says that we were once again thinking much alike.
It has this quote: — My client this morning talked about how he just told his children, “find something you love, that you want to get out of bed in the morning to do, and make it your passion. That’s all I want for your lives.” Wise Dad! —
Your community here has some great comments. I really believe that you need to find your calling to bring your life together.
Julie Walraven | Resume Services´s last blog ..Did you review your resolutions yet
Thank you, Julie. As I said to Eleanor, isn’t synchronicity wonderful!
Your additional point is great too: “you need to find your calling to bring your life together”. I do think that it’s that that, from a work point of view, pulls together the disparate parts of us, brings focus and releases unbound energy.
Great to have you here!
Hi Christine
What an interesting question.
“A Job, Career, or Calling” – for me it has been all three.
Sometimes I love my job and it feels like a calling.
Then I enjoy the prestige of being qualified so it’s a career.
Sometimes it’s hard work… and then it’s a job, a necessity to pay the bills.
Am I allowed all three? LOL
Keith Davis´s last blog ..A splash of colour
LOL!!
I suspect that’s the nature of the beast, Keith. There’s lots of stuff out there about spending all your time following your passion. For me that’s nirvana. Most of the time I feel I’m pursuing my calling. But then there’s that pesky finance and admin stuff I need to do to keep my accountant happy …..
While I’ll soon be in a position to afford regular VA support, there’s just some effort that needs to be put in up front to get to that stage. Still, so long as I can see purpose in it, I can keep doing it with moderate enthusiasm!
I love the last part about moderate enthusiasm, as long as there is purpose in it. I think it describes my current situation perfectly.
I actually see myself as doing a job right now in order that I get to the bottom of other things, I guess I mean the other things to be predominantly what is my calling (well along with some intensive heavy emotional dredging/filtering/healing)… So right now I have a “job/career” but what they are serving me for (hopefully) is to find my calling. It took me a long time to get to that way of thinking as before I felt like I was just doing something that really felt like hard work, but in recent months it has come to feel like I do a job/career for me. Not just for the money or prestige or whatever else.
What a great way to look at things. Perhaps you are doing a job right now, but it’s one that’s supporting other important things in your life. Looked at that way, that’s not a bad place to be, is it?
It took a lot of thinking about to get to understand it. For ages I was just beating myself about not doing the right thing or trying to make what I do now into the right thing, wondering how other people seemed to just know and I didn’t. When I stopped and managed to understand that what I do now is not necessarily my calling but something that I can do very well in order to be paid well and support my own development then things started to fall into place. It meant that I could actually turn up to workshops such as yours in order to start investigating things further, I stopped comparing myself to others and started to be more concerned about finding out about what makes me tick/inspired. Then this definetly feels like a good place.
How terrific, Tim. That sounds like great progress.