Finding a vocation is necessary for a person to achieve inner balance and harmony. If you are successful, your life acquires meaning. A person who has found their vocation feels themselves as a significant figure in society, their inner strength, and their happiness from each day lived.
What a Vocation Is
Every word has an origin. “Vocation” comes from the Latin word vocatio, which means “call” or “challenge.”
A vocation can correspond to our interests, hobbies, and talents. It’s wonderful when a person recognizes their individual character traits and turns a vocation into a profession.
Why It’s Important to Find a Vocation
Three main reasons can be identified to support how important it is to find a vocation.
Natural Need
Let’s remember Maslow’s pyramid of needs: at the top is the need for self-actualization. The American psychologist categorized human needs according to their importance, starting with basic needs and ending with more complex but essential ones. Self-realization is achieved when a person likes what they do; otherwise, it becomes a heavy chore.
Identifying Our Vocations Bring Us More Joy and Happiness
According to research, understanding one’s purpose in life is an important aspect of happiness. People who have found their vocation feel more satisfaction in life, which in turn contributes to their mental and physical health.
When We Discover Our Vocations, Decision Making Becomes Easier
Finding your calling makes decision-making easier. When you have a clear idea of what you want to do, it’s easier to choose from the many opportunities that are truly important. This applies to education, hobbies, and the environment as well. You don’t have to weigh the pros and cons every time. Just evaluate whether the action fits your calling and helps you move in that direction.
Four Ways to Find Your Vocation
Whichever path you choose, be it as a professional sports betting player, a book author, or a coach, the key to finding your vocation is constant self-reflection. The process of reflection reveals important details that are important to be able to grasp. At first, it’s helpful to spend time alone with yourself, perhaps even speaking your thoughts aloud.
Ikigai
In Japan, the term “ikigai” is used for the concept of vocation. It’s what encourages a person to wake up in the morning and move forward. Here’s how you can find your calling in your profession and in life by putting ikigai into practice:
- Draw four circles intersecting at one point.
- Write one question in each circle:
- What do I like to do?
- What am I good at?
- How can I earn money in the future?
- What unsolved problems do people in the world face?
- Try to give answers to them.
Processes
Every profession is like a set of processes similar to computer science. It’s a sequence of steps that a person performs to solve a task. Processes may include writing articles, researching complex topics, and creating graphs. Their set is limited and similar from profession to profession. For example, an interface designer and a programmer perform similar activities but use different tools. Both research problems, break them down into their constituent parts, and develop solutions that they then implement.
According to this approach, vocation is about finding a business where you enjoy most of the processes. This means you don’t have to choose between becoming a techie or a humanitarian.
Here’s how to put this into practice:
- Take an A4 sheet of paper and divide it into three columns.
- In the left column, write down all the significant hobbies, school projects, homework, games, and other hobbies from the last few years. Meaningful activities are those that you spent more time on than a couple days and had something that interested you.
- Think back and write down in the middle column what you liked about each of them. Did you enjoy drawing posters for school projects? Perhaps you liked building houses in the Sims? Or maybe you enjoyed writing literature essays as homework?
- Look at all the processes you have written down and think about what professions you could do this in.
Living Diverse Experiences
Living completely new experiences is key to discovering your vocation.
Here’s how you can accomplish this. Open yourself up to some completely new experiences: traveling, giving up gadgets temporarily, participating in a project with a friend, appearing on television, etc. Ask yourself “Why?” at least five times a day, such as: “Why do I want to do this?”, “Why this and why now?”, and so on. In this way, you will be able to identify the true reasons for your desires and actions, which may lead to the discovery of a vocation.
Interacting With New People
When you meet and get to know people outside of your normal social circle, you open yourself up to seeing the world from a new perspective. From this angle, your true vocation may be hidden.
