It's really tragic how many of us are unhappy in our work. A big survey (covering 230,000 workers in 142 countries) just out from Gallup found that 87% of workers are either 'not engaged' in their work (putting little energy in, unhappy, but not drastically so), or 'actively disengaged' (emotionally disconnected, actively disliking their job). Another survey last year by Parade magazine and Yahoo Finance of 26,000 Americans discovered that almost 60% of them fully regretted their career choices. Heartbreaking.
And yet the world is full of advice about pursuing your passion. We get told this continuously through our TVs, countless articles and books. But what if you don't know what you're real passion or purpose is? I don't think I did for many years. And I suspect that I am not unusual. I used to look on those that had a strong sense of vocation with envy.
Professor Richard Shell of Wharton Business School says that one likely reason that so many people are filled with such regret is that they didn't ask the right questions at the start. He says:
“I think that for a lot of these people, they hadn’t thoughtfully defined what success would look like in their own terms before pursuing work that aligned more closely with family, social or cultural expectations. They hadn’t thought at the beginning to look for a suit of clothes that would fit them.”
He has a book out on the subject and there's a FastCompany piece about it. Shell was like me. He took his time to find his vocation. I particularly like his point about how rather than being a static process, success is dynamic, and requires taking risks and experimentation. To that end, finding our purpose takes a lot more trial and error than most give it credit for. I can relate to that.
Photo Credit: Celestine Chua via Compfight cc
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