How To Find Your Unique Calling When You Have No Idea
Build the life compass that shows you the way
You’re finally a responsible adult and you have a stable job that can pay the bills. You work hard, but no matter how hard you try, you’ve been unable to sleep at night these days because you have these gnawing questions that won’t go away.
“Is this all there is to life?”
“What is my purpose?”
“What is my calling in life?”
You’ve wrestled with these question for so long and you’ve given up when you convince yourself the life you’ve always wanted is just a dream.
So you settle. You take the stable job for the benefits and decided to just bear the misery until you’re finally old enough to retire, but what if it’s too late by then?
If You’re Feeling Stuck in Life, You’re Not Alone.
A gallup poll shows that over 50% of Americans report not being engaged in their jobs.
On top of this there’s evidence that people are not just disengaged with their jobs. They’re disengaged with their lives as well.
Do you know what one of the fastest growing classes of prescribed drugs were in the U.S.?
Antidepressants.
A report last year indicated 1 in 6 Americans takes a psychiatric drug with antidepressants being the most common, followed by anti-anxiety meds.
So we have a majority of Americans who are disengaged with their jobs, unhappy and anxious. I think one of the core reasons this is happening is pretty simple.
We are busy chasing after the wrong things and when we finally achieve these wrong things, it doesn’t fulfill us.
So how do you begin to craft a life that is bringing out all of your best potential?
1. Find Your True Self by Creating Safe Spaces in Your Life
There is so much pressure to deal with whether it’s from society, peers, and even friends and family to look, act or be a certain way.
It’s all this pressure that can lead us to constantly feel like we are not good enough and we often compromise who we really are in exchange for fitting in.
The problem with learning how to fit in though, is that we never actually end up feeling like we belong because of this opening chasm between who we really are and who we are portraying ourselves as.
When it comes to finding your own unique calling, it’s only in this safe space that you can truly discover it.
It’s because it’s only here that true connection with the passionate and talented individual that you really are can occur.
2. Get Crystal Clear in The Direction You Need to go by Finding Your Why
Imagine that there’s a million dollars cash at the top of a 24,000 foot mountain. You spent months hiking through the bad weather and dangerous climbs, but you finally get to the top. You search for the treasure that you’ve always wanted, but you only find garbage. Then you realize one horrible thing.
You climbed the wrong mountain.
This is the same feeling when you spend all your life working towards something that has nothing to do with your why. Your why is a “Purpose, cause or belief that inspires you to do what you do” as explained by Simon Sinek.
If time feels like it went by so fast and you find yourself wondering how you got so far from where you wanted to be, you either don’t know your why or you’ve lost sight of it.
You’ll often feel lost and stuck even if you’ve already got quite a few accomplishments under your belt. When this happens, you tend to distract yourself more with pleasurable experiences instead of investing in more meaningful ones.
By clearly setting a destination for your life based on what matters to you most, you at least know which way you want to go even though all the immediate next steps are unclear.
3. Achieve Immense Growth by Activating Your Talents
Every individual has a unique set of talents they can use to make some sort of impact if they just use them.
The ironic part is many people try to become talented at things other than their own natural ones.
In the movie Cool Runnings, four Jamaican friends form a bobsled team and attempt to compete in the winter olympics. You could imagine how hard it would be to train for this considering it doesn’t snow in Jamaica, but they managed to pull it off. They qualified to compete in the olympics and earned the respect of their country, but they unfortunately lost.
The underdog story where a character achieves a big dream against all odds is extremely inspiring, but what if the character was actually super talented in something else entirely?
For example, let’s hypothetically say the four friends from Cool Runnings actually had amazing singing voices. They trained their butts off to make it to the winter olympics and perform mediocre at best, but maybe if they spent the same time practicing their music instead, they would’ve become the next Beatles.
Here’s the bottom line.
If you spend time investing in something you are naturally talented in, you grow exponentially compared to spending the time on one of your weaknesses.
While I know it’s unreasonable to ignore all your flaws, it’s important to give your strengths the attention they deserve.
4. Create a Solid Support System by Building Your Tribe
A common perception of someone who’s strong is the brave loner who achieved his biggest goals against all odds, but the truth is that no matter what, we need people.
One of the biggest core needs of all humans is connection. It’s what drives all of our behavior. This is why some are willing to kill for the gangs they join or get spanked to get into a fraternity.
Unfortunately, most people go about this all wrong because they end up giving up a part of their true selves in exchange for fitting in somewhere. But when we find a loving tribe where we are not afraid to be ourselves, this is when we find a place where we belong and our calling becomes a lot more clearer.
We are all in need of genuine connections and these important connections are what guide us down the path we were meant to go on.
“Happiness is only real when shared.”
— Christopher McCandless
The reality is your unique calling is not a personal journey.
It’s a discovery process that involves your best self serving a need that is much bigger than just yourself.
As you live out your calling, everything gets better about yourself, the people around you, and the people you indirectly impact.
Everybody Dies, But Not Everybody Lives
Is the way you are living right now steering you towards the life you’ve always wanted?
If the answer is either “No” or “I don’t know”, then maybe it’s time reconnect with yourself.
Fear often holds you in a headlock telling you to stay put, but we will never live our best lives until we intimately connect with the things that matter to us most and make us come alive.
So don’t let not knowing what to do be an excuse to do nothing.
Kick the status quo in the face and keep fighting for your life.
It’ll be worth it. I promise.
Are you ready to figure out your own unique calling?
Download my free workbook, “What’s Next? Four Insanely Important Steps to Finding Your Unique Calling”, for some practical things you can immediately start doing today.
