[1]Psychology's five revelations for finding your true calling:
Look. You can't plan out your life. What you have to do is first
discover your passion - what you really care about.
Barack Obama
If, like many, you are searching for your calling in life - perhaps
you are still unsure which profession aligns with what you most care
about - here are five recent research findings worth taking into
consideration.
First, there's a difference between having a harmonious passion and
an obsessive passion. If you can find a career path or occupational
goal that fires you up, you are more likely to succeed and find
happiness through your work - that much we know from the deep
research literature. But beware - since a seminal [2]paper published
in 2003 by the Canadian psychologist Robert Vallerand and
colleagues, researchers have made an important distinction between
having a harmonious passion and an obsessive one. If you feel that
your passion or calling is out of control, and that your mood and
self-esteem depend on it, then this is the obsessive variety, and
such passions, while they are energising, are also [3]associated
with negative outcomes such as burnout and anxiety. In contrast, if
your passion feels in control, reflects qualities that you like
about yourself, and complements other important activities in your
life, then this is the harmonious version, which is associated with
positive outcomes, such as vitality, better work performance,
experiencing flow, and positive mood.
Secondly, having an unanswered calling in life is worse than having
no calling at all. If you already have a burning ambition or
purpose, do not leave it to languish. A few years ago, researchers
at the University of South Florida [4]surveyed hundreds of people
and grouped them according to whether they felt like they had no
calling in life, that they had a calling they'd answered, or they
had a calling but had never done anything about it. In terms of
their work engagement, career commitment, life satisfaction, health
and stress, the stand-out finding was that the participants who had
a calling they hadn't answered scored the worst across all these
measures. The researchers said that this puts a different spin on
the presumed benefits of having a calling in life. They concluded:
'having a calling is only a benefit if it is met, but can be a
detriment when it is not as compared to having no calling at all'.
The third finding to bear in mind is that, without passion, grit is
'merely a grind'. The idea that 'grit' is vital for career success
was advanced by the psychologist Angela Duckworth of the University
of Pennsylvania, who argued that highly successful, 'gritty' people
have impressive persistence. 'To be gritty,' Duckworth writes in her
2016 book on the subject, 'is to fall down seven times, and rise
eight.' Many studies certainly show that being more conscientious -
more self-disciplined and industrious - is associated with more
career success. But is that all that being gritty means? Duckworth
has always emphasised that it has another vital component that
brings us back to passion again - alongside persistence, she says
that gritty people also have an 'ultimate concern' (another way of
describing having a passion or calling).
However, according to a [5]paper published last year, the standard
measure of grit has failed to assess passion (or more specifically,
'passion attainment') - and Jon Jachimowicz at Columbia Business
School in New York and colleagues believe this could explain why the
research on grit has been so inconsistent (leading to [6]claims that
it is an overhyped concept and simply conscientiousness repackaged).
Jachimowicz's team found that when they explicitly measured passion
attainment (how much people feel they have adequate passion for
their work) and combined this with a measure of perseverance (a
consistency of interests and the ability to overcome setbacks), then
the two together did predict superior performance among tech-company
employees and university students. 'Our findings suggest that
perseverance without passion attainment is mere drudgery, but
perseverance with passion attainment propels individuals forward,'
they said.
Another finding is that, when you invest enough effort, you might
find that your work becomes your passion. It's all very well reading
about the benefits of having a passion or calling in life but, if
you haven't got one, where to find it? Duckworth [7]says it's a
mistake to think that in a moment of revelation one will land in
your lap, or simply occur to you through quiet contemplation -
rather, you need to explore different activities and pursuits, and
expose yourself to the different challenges and needs confronting
society.
Yes!
If you still draw a blank, then perhaps it's worth heeding the
advice of others who say that it is not always the case that energy
and determination flow from finding your passion - sometimes it can
be the other way around and, if you put enough energy into your
work, then passion will follow. Consider, for instance, an
eight-week repeated [8]survey of German entrepreneurs published in
2014 that found a clear pattern - their passion for their ventures
increased after they'd invested more effort into them the week
before. A follow-up study qualified this, suggesting that the
energising effect of investing effort arises only when the project
is freely chosen and there is a sense of progress. 'Entrepreneurs
increase their passion when they make significant progress in their
venture and when they invest effort out of their own free choice,'
the researchers said.
There is the concept of the [9]craftsman approach put forth by Cal
Newport and others, to which I subscribe.
Finally, if you think that passion comes from doing a job you enjoy,
you're likely to be disappointed. Consider where you think passion
comes from. In a preprint [10]paper released at PsyArXiv,
Jachimowicz and his team draw a distinction between people who
believe that passion comes from doing what you enjoy (which they say
is encapsulated by Oprah Winfrey's commencement address in 2008 in
which she said passions 'bloom when we're doing what we love'), and
those who see it as arising from doing what you believe in or value
in life (as reflected in the words of former Mexican president
Felipe Calderón who in his own commencement address in 2011 said
'you have to embrace with passion the things that you believe in,
and that you are fighting for').
The researchers found that people who believe that passion comes
from pleasurable work were less likely to feel that they had found
their passion (and were more likely to want to leave their job) as
compared with people who believe that passion comes from doing what
you feel matters. Perhaps this is because there is a superficiality
and ephemerality to working for sheer pleasure - what fits the bill
one month or year might not do so for long - whereas working towards
what you care about is a timeless endeavour that is likely to
stretch and sustain you indefinitely. The researchers conclude that
their results show 'the extent to which individuals attain their
desired level of work passion may have less to do with their actual
jobs and more to do with their beliefs about how work passion is
pursued'.
This is an adaptation of an [11]article originally published by The
British Psychological Society's Research Digest.
(Via [12]Aeon)
__________________________________________________________________
My original entry is here: [13]Psychology's five revelations for
finding your true calling. It posted Wed, 16 Jan 2019 14:52:50 +0000.
Filed under: business,
References
1.
https://aeon.co/ideas/psychologys-five-revelations-for-finding-your-true-calling?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=rss-feed
2.
http://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2003-08110-016
3.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11031-015-9503-0
4.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0001879115000901?via=ihub
5.
http://www.pnas.org/content/115/40/9980
6.
http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-29674-001
7.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17439760.2014.898320
8.
https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/amj.2011.0727
9.
http://calnewport.com/blog/2011/08/11/the-career-craftsman-manifesto/
10.
https://psyarxiv.com/qj6y9
11.
https://digest.bps.org.uk/2018/11/15/how-to-find-your-calling-according-to-psychology/
12.
https://aeon.co/feed.rss
13.
https://www.prjorgensen.com/?p=2528
