How to find a career you can love
Let’s take these three golden rules to get started:
- Define your values
- Follow your passion
- Find your purpose
Values
Think of your values as the foundation for your passion and purpose — they define what is important to you and can influence the passions you pursue and in turn, your purpose.
Ask yourself:
- “What is important for you in life?”
- “What are your non-negotiables?”
It might be your need to help people, or to have complete financial independence, or perhaps it is the need to be creative or flexibility to work around other commitments.
Make a note of what your values are and see how it can bring you clarity and direction when it comes to making decisions about your career and help you balance when you feel frustrated or overwhelmed.
Be honest and focus on what is truly fundamental for you.
Once you have a list of words, it’s important to define what those words mean to you. You’re looking for an explanation of each value that is useful to you.
Know that it might take time to find and stabilise your values. You might start with a set of values, and later, end up with a different list. And it’s likely that they will change as you grow in your life and career, and that is just fine.
Using your values
Defining your values is not just reeling off abstract concepts, but manifesting them in your actions, decisions, and behaviours. When your values align with your actions, you will experience greater satisfaction and authenticity. To reap the benefits of value identification, you also need to live by them.
Passion
Passion is what drives you to explore and engage in activities aligned with your values. Fundamental to passion is the intense emotional drive that fuels its pursuit. It’s the deep interest and enjoyment you derive from a particular activity, cause, or field.
And it’s this emotion that often creates a high level of commitment to one’s passion, even when times are hard.
Finding your passion
Passion often arises from within, driven by personal interests and desires. It’s something you do because you genuinely love it. When you’re passionate about something, you’re naturally drawn to it, and the mere act of engaging in that activity or pursuing that interest becomes rewarding.
What activities or pursuits in your life bring you a sense of joy and fulfillment just by engaging in them without any external rewards or pressures? Will you still do that thing even if nobody is watching or nobody will ever find out about it? If so, that is an indicator that you are truly passionate about it.
Keep in mind that you can have multiple passions in different areas of your life. For example, you may be passionate about painting, cooking, and environmental conservation. It can feel overwhelming to have multiple passions but know that you don’t have to choose. You can make space for all your passions in different proportions and at different times throughout your life.
Purpose
Purpose is a broader and more profound concept that encapsulates how your values and passions come together.
It is a sense of meaning and direction in life that goes beyond personal enjoyment or fulfillment. Purpose often involves contributing to the greater good or serving a cause larger than yourself.
Discovering your purpose
To find your purpose, ask yourself questions like
- “What is the ultimate reason for my existence?”
- “What social or environmental issues do I feel strongly about and in what ways can my skills, passions, or resources contribute to addressing these issues?”
These are big questions that might require time to process, so don’t rush.
Your purpose will likely be more focused compared to your passion. It represents a clear and concrete objective that gives your life direction and meaning.
Think of your purpose as a mission statement for your life. For example, somebody’s purpose might be to alleviate poverty in their community by providing financial resources to micro-entrepreneurs. In which case, they might target jobs in banking or other financial institutions so they can learn the system from the inside.
Using your purpose
Your purpose can help guide your actions and serve as a constant reference point for decision-making in your career. It can be a helpful guidepost for long-term planning, helping you understand your career in the context of what you ultimately want to achieve or the legacy you want to leave behind.
Know that using your purpose for career decision-making may require you to prioritise your mission over short-term gains or comforts. Make sure you’re clear on your non-negotiables (aka your values) and the sacrifices you’re willing to make to fulfill your purpose.
The relationship between Values, Passion and Purpose
In summary,
- values provide your foundation
- passion is what excites and motivates you
- purpose is your deeper reason for existence
These concepts are deeply inter-connected and aligning them will give you the best chance at having a fulfilling life and career.
But having perfect alignment isn’t always possible. It’s likely that you’ll encounter challenges in trying to live by your values, pursue your passion, and find your purpose and they may clash with each other.
It is okay not to have everything perfectly defined or aligned. You may need to prioritise them based on what’s most useful to you in this current moment. There will be times when your values are driving you forward, and other times it will be your passion or purpose.
The truth is, “values,” “passion,” and “purpose” impact you differently at different points in your life, depending on the meaning you assign them. It’s up to you to discover what they mean for you and your career.