So much of my work is helping relieve the pressure we place on ourselves and our jobs, and one idea that instills all kinds of pressure is “a calling”. I automatically feel daunted, overwhelmed, defeated, confused and a host of other emotions if I think too much about what it means to find a calling.
Over the weekend I finished the book, Playing Big, by Tara Mohr (a wonderful recommendation from a past client) and learned a completely different way to think about a calling.
“A calling, as we’ll define it in this chapter, is a longing to address a particular need or problem in the world. Callings are about making a contribution for the good, about in some way bringing more light and love into the world. They are a path through which we can respond to the lack and brokenness we see before us.”
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I thought to myself, ok, I can get behind that, but this next section is what really blew my mind:
“Some callings are big, long-term projects. Others are smaller, shorter-term endeavors that might take a day or even just an hour. What defines a calling is not its duration or the domain in which it takes place, but the sense of passion and longing to address a particular need.”
The idea that a calling can be a short-term endeavor in a day or even an hour created so much relief for me, it’s so far from the definition I usually use that it’s about your life’s work. I started getting curious about my hour-long or day-long callings and how I might make more room for them.
“Callings reveal themselves through eight common patterns. You don’t need to experience all eight of these (and probably won’t) around any given calling, but likely, if something is a calling for you, it will show up in at least a few of these ways:
You feel an unusually vivid pain or frustration around the status quo of a particular issue or topic.
You see a powerful vision—vague or clear—about what could be around some aspect of the status quo. That vision keeps coming back into your mind and keeps tugging at your heart.
You feel huge resistance. A part of you wants to run in the other direction.
You feel a sense of “this work is mine to do,” or of having received an assignment to do a particular piece of work in the world.
There are challenges, fears, and doubts, but when you are actually doing the calling, you feel a rare sense of meaning and rightness. When you do it, you tap into an immense well of energy.
You don’t—yet—have everything you need to have to complete the task.
You aren’t—yet—the person you need to be to complete the assignment. You’ll need to develop personal qualities you don’t yet have in the amounts or ways this task requires.
The journey is the reward. You enjoy the process along the way rather than feeling as if you have to “just get through” the steps to reach the end goal or final stage.”
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It immediately clicked for me that for the past few years, one of the callings I feel is around incarceration in the US. Mid-April I read this NYT article that starts with:
“For those who don’t wish to sit by helplessly during the coronavirus crisis, there is something you can do. You can very possibly save a life by bailing someone out of jail.”
I had an immediate and intense desire to raise $5000 to bail people out of jail for my birthday this year… followed by a desire to hide and not say it out loud so I didn’t fail in my audacious goal. The US system of for-profit bail is one of those issues that I have felt an unusually vivid pain around since 2017 and have worked on in various ways since then (contributing financially, working with the ACLU, etc). I do feel a sense of “this work is mine to do” right alongside a definite lack of being the person I need to be to make a difference. By the end of May, I was able to raise over $10,000 to bail people out of jail by sharing about my calling.
I hope me sharing my exploration of one of my own callings helps you reflect on your various callings (life or hour-long) and gives more room to discover them. As it says in Playing Big, Tara Mohr sees again and again that we don’t need to do our callings for forty hours a week to experience immense fulfillment, your calling doesn’t demand that it’s the way you pay your rent, “it is simply begging you to give it some space for true expression in your life.”
Here are some of the questions she poses to help you think about your own callings:
Based on my background and my life experience, what is my role in the ecosystem around this topic? What is my slice of the truth to tell? What is my right piece to add to the mosaic? What is the contribution I am uniquely qualified to make?
How does your calling look or feel different when you remember that feeling resistance, not having what you need to do the calling, and not being who you’d need to be to do it are all telltale signs of a calling?
What are the big themes across your callings? List the callings you feel now and, to the extent that you can remember, the calls you felt through your lifetime—whether you followed those calls or not. What themes—obvious or subtle—show up? What do these themes and threads tell you about your “big callings” and the work you are meant to do?
I hope I get to contribute to your calling one day.
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