Work: Using More Of Our Potential – #003

80% of life is showing up – Woody Allen 

Talent is the rate at which you increase in your skill with effort – Angela Duckworth. 

Definitions:

Work: Is an activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result.

Purpose is defined as the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists.

Calling: A strong urge toward a particular way of life or career; a vocation.

Vocation: Is a job or profession.

James Fowler an American theologian who was Professor of Theology and Human Development at Emory University. Describes vocation as finding a purpose for one’s life that is part of the purposes of God.

I feel like the list of who landed in what work or even the right work and who didn’t, is exhaustive. I for one fall into the category of those who aren’t doing what they really love: or so I thought.

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People tell you to follow your passion and everything else will follow.

I have been trying to figure that out though, and have no answer to the popular quote than to say it doesn’t always work that way.

 “Do what you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life”.

That word is attributed to Confucius, who lived from 551 BC to 479,  a Chinese philosopher and politician.  Totally unrelated, but a funny thing is, in our century this quote is also attributed to…. drum roll please, no one other than J-Lo’s former husband Marc Anthony. He’s quoted as saying that “if you do what you love you’ll never have to work a day in your life”.

The same quote with a little bit of tweaking – still the same idea.

So, how about those people who’ve always known what they wanted to become? Well, I’ve met a couple and I’m sure grit plays a major part in them achieving their goals.

There are those people I’ve met who it seems always knew what they wanted to be when they grew up.

We’ll get to them in a few.

There are also public figures, people like Neil deGrasse Tyson an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, planetary scientist who met Carl Edward Sagan an American astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, science popularizer, and science communicator at age 17. 

Or people I’ve met, like that mechanic shop owner I took my car to one time. He looked like he enjoyed what he did so I asked him how he knew that was the job he was meant to do. He told me that when he was younger he used to fix cars with his dad…  this conversation has been a while now so I can’t remember if his dad was a mechanic or if his dad was just one of those parents that always had a car they we’re always fixing. Long story short, today he’s a mechanic.

Then there’s that real estate broker I met. I also asked the same question. He too looked like he enjoyed what he did too. How did you know you were going to be a real estate agent, I asked him, how did you know that this would be the thing that work, that this would be the job for you (again the stories old now) but he said someone came to his school on a particular day (maybe career day) and gave a talk and the person was a real estate broker (I hope I’m remembering correctly) and he got the opportunity to take a personality test and when he took his test it turned out he was matched to becoming a real estate agent. So, he became one, specializing in residential homes and then later becoming a commercial Real Estate Broker.

Lesson to learn: That finding the work you’re called to is not linear, but you want to get as close as possible by starting early.

Even though he didn’t start as a commercial real estate broker, staying in real estate helped him find out the type of real estate agent he wanted to be. And taking that personality test also helped.

He too, like the owner of the mechanic shop I referenced above earlier, continues to love the work they do till today.

What a great inspiration for anyone looking to pivot or find the work they are called to do.

Then there are people like me who work and then start thinking maybe I made the wrong decision with this job I’m in. Maybe, I’ve landed myself in the wrong position, or maybe you just inherently know that you’re just settling and are not fulfilling your life’s calling or your life’s purpose by doing the work you’re called to.

There are also those, who I feel have no idea they’ve been in the wrong position, vocation, work or doing the wrong job. They work on their career ladder plan and they even love this job too. And, climb the ladder of success and then they get close to this thing they’ve always wanted and then realize that it’s not what they really want and then they do a 355 to redirect.

We can all go on a journey to redirect. We can keep digging in to find more categories of work, so far this is what I know based on my journey.

Finding the right work is a path faced with a lot of bumps and turns, and truthfully as someone who has been on a journey to discover her own calling in the past couple of years, I got to a point in which I knew that I fell into my profession by mistake.

See, I wanted to be a doctor, a newscaster, a business owner like my dad who ran a stock broking firm but… then life happened. My grades told a different story, I didn’t do my best in high school, let’s put it that way.

So, becoming a doctor with the classes I took in high school wasn’t going to be possible. There were also family issues that set the foundation for me to study Comparative Religion as a first degree, sometimes our family dynamics will change the direction of our destiny. I own the fact that not doing the work I loved at an early age was a part of my downfall.

In hindsight, I truly believe that a lot of us have more potential than the one we use. It’s like we have a potential of 100 and only use 20. It’s like buying a multi functioning printer but only using the copier option. We need to push ourselves as teens and as adults to work harder and stronger.

Because I realized this about myself, I push my kids to do better. You’ll hear me shout in the morning as they head off to school, (before Covid) be the best you can and then go a little bit further.  

As an adult I’ve come to understand that we are all wired differently.  Some of us are self-motivated, some of us need the motivation and push to do hard and scary things.

If a parent who is self-motivated is parenting a child who isn’t then the tendency is for that parent to assume that their child is a lazy person. I see how a parent can get frustrated with a child like that and want to give up in frustration. Doing that though will only lead to the child not having a cheerleader (YOU) to fight for them or to push them in life. 

If you’re the parent of such a child that has been called lazy, and so on and so forth, I suggest cheerleading your child to work harder and stay with the task a little bit longer. 

A long time ago I came across psychologist Angela Duckworth TED Talk, and work and like many of you who’ve listened to her you know that she talks about Grit and Self-Control. I was really fascinated about her work on Grit,  but before I go into the importance of her research on self-control and grit I’m going to let you in on a secret. 

Yes, you guessed it, she’s doing the work she’s called to do.

Before Angela Duckworth became a psychologist she was a management consultant, and a teacher and in one of the classes she taught a 7th grade class. While teaching her 7th grade class in New York City, she gave quizzes and tests but she noticed a couple things but most importantly she noticed that IQ wasn’t the problem of the students in her class. The smart kids were not doing well, she noticed. And she came to the conclusion that kids who worked long and hard enough could do better. And before you knew it Angela Duckworth became a psychologist and she’s been one till today.

Yes, she found the work she loves while trying to solve a problem.

Questions To Ponder:

What problem are you trying to solve?

What question are you trying to figure out?

Maybe that’s your work or maybe that’s how you find the  work you love.

Angela, defines what we all need to succeed in life as Grit.

Grit she said is passion and perseverance for very long term goals.

So back to how we can help our teens and even ourselves as adults.

She realized that doing well in school and life depends on more than our ability to learn quickly and easily. The one characteristic she sees of all successful people is grit, passion and perseverance for every long-term goal. That they stick with things for years, most talented people do not necessarily follow through on commitments she shared. She’s very very clear on the fact that talent and grit are not the same. 

So How Can We Get Better?

I think a lot of people have tried to solve this problem, schools, tutoring, community centers, including motivational speakers.

I suggest we need to do a couple of things.

1.  We need to read the book Angela Duckworth – Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance 
2.  Read mindset by Carol Dweck Mindset: The New Psychology of Success 
3.  For the whole week write down what you noticed with your kids, you want to write down what you notice.Bored, interested, happy, excited, sad, self-motivated.
4. Study outliers in your community. 
5. Read Tools of Titan by Tim Ferriss 
6. Let kids finish what they start.
7. Teach kids to ask for help early. 

I don’t think I knew how to ask for help until 2018,  and even then, I failed woefully at asking for help in 2020.  

I know that popular culture says that we should always push through things but we need to be discerning when we push through, and when we ask for help.

So what have I learnt in all of my questions, in my own personal journey, towards finding the work I’m called to do.

I’ve learnt that the times when I stuck to my passion and persevered is when my grit has grown. 

How can we help our kids:

1. You can explain to them the purpose of grits in life. 
2. You can even show them examples of athletes or public figures who have grits.
3. Let them know early that the work they do in life should always matter to their soul.
4. Put kids in sports programs and extracurricular programs so they can hone their skills for perseverance and as such build grit.
5. Teach your children how to finish things they start.
6. Teaching kids the importance of having a growth mindset and a fixed mindset.

And I’ll end on this note Angela Duckworth has a list of 4 things that will help build grit in adults and young kids alike.

1. Setting goals
2. Investing In one on one coaching, or tutoring for your kids in that area of passion e.g practicing with great effort.
3. Asking for immediate feedback.
4. Reflecting on the feedback received and then repeating the task again to implement.

She shares that, we should always remember that grit is built on; deliberate practice, passion and perseverance; it’s not something you do unintentionally.

And I want you to see my example, that I too am doing what I love. That I have this podcast because I have been asking this one question for the past few years.

I keep asking people how did you find the work you’re doing.

I ask random people, I ask people I know. I ask anybody, I ask strangers – I just plain ask when I see someone who’s excited about the work they do.

Thanks so much for reading/listening today, if any of my words resonate with you please consider leaving a comment, don’t forget to come over to the website to view the links to the resources shared.