If you ask a little kid about 5 years old what they want to be when they grow up, they usually have an answer for you.
I have a whole group of Kindergarteners I get to hang out with every Sunday and man do they have some dreams. A lot of my boys want to be video game designers or famous athletes. They say this with grins spread across their faces while they high-five their buddies.
One of my kids from small group told me he wanted to be a marine biologist. He could actually pronounce the term and everything. At 5 years old.
I thought this must be something his science loving parents have hammered into his head since he was an infant, but when I told the mom about his answer, she said “I know. He really does. He’s infatuated with sea life. I have no idea where it came from.” As he stood there, nodding his head.
Now what made that kid hook onto that dream with such passion?
I was inspired.
I wondered if it was too late for me to become a marine biologist. I mean I could study really hard and work at the Aquarium for an internship…it couldn’t be that hard right?
It seems funny, but most people who don’t know what they want to do “when they grow up” are actually grown.
Some of us are into our 30’s, 40’s and 50’s, even older, and still have yet to be fulfilled when it comes to our stamp on the world. Maybe we once thought we knew what we wanted to do as our vocation but that idea was snuffed out by the practical things of life.
Others of us know exactly what living our dream looks like but are really afraid to stop what we are doing now. Because if we stop and focus on the dream instead…. what if…
What if we fail?
What if we can’t support ourselves or our family?
What if all the people we know think it’s stupid and we are risking too much?
The fear of failure can become all consuming. We become paralyzed to move forward or to even try. We play it safe. And if we do get the courage to branch out and follow a dream, the second we fail or didn’t accomplish what we expected, we give up.
Instead we log in in hours or years of time, energy and commitment to other ventures. Other people’s work – somebody else’s dream.
And just think about all that time and energy.
Some of us got up for the past 5, 10, 15 years following a playbook someone else wrote. Maybe we have veered into the safe lane and stayed there all this time. Not even turning on the blinker.
What if instead we spent the next year, 18 months, 3 years giving twice the amount of that energy to our calling?
Something we once wanted so badly we could taste it. Something we naturally gravitated to because it was fun, we were good at it and sharing it with others gave us a sense of fulfillment we never knew before. Those things are what we were made to do.
Maybe we just forgot what they were and how badly we wanted them. Maybe we don’t really know how much other people need us to find it.
So how do we even understand what our “calling” is?
As Jeff Goins in The Art of Work phrases it, finding a calling “is in a way, a journey of becoming. To be called is not enough. You must become your calling, a choice that happens only if you make it.” That’s heavy stuff.
Goins talks about us looking at the journey to our calling as living a “portfolio life”.
It is such an interesting concept because it has everything to do with normalizing change, sacrifice and failure and nothing really to do with a result or end job.
He relays his own journey of wanting to become a writer, quitting his full time job after saving up for 6 months, then becoming complacent and bored with his own dream – the reason he made such drastic change in the first place.
It took a deadline and potential bankruptcy for him to figure out that he actually did want this dream. He just had to reject the expectation he clung to in his mind on what that looked like. He took odd jobs, accepted unexpected change he never planned, failed, then got back up again and again. He is still on his journey because it is evolving as he continues.
He did become a writer but he also makes a steady living being a motivational speaker, coach and business mentor. He is now known for his story of failure and the wisdom he received from it, but he is much more than that. He is authentically his journey.
Sharing his failure with others was how he set on the path to living his dream. It is the thing that moved him onto the path he needed to be on to become the writer he always wanted to be.
Isn’t that ironic?
He wanted to be a writer but failed. After he screwed up he realized he really wanted it more than anything. So he put everything back into that dream, while making money on the side to support it. And the failing itself, along with the acceptance that the result would not be as he imagined, is what made him successful.
Jeff Goins thought he knew what he wanted to do, but it didn’t end up being what he thought it was going to be.
Finding your calling, becoming your calling is really unexpected, challenging work.
No wonder not a lot of people end up doing it.
If you are inspired to begin you really have to understand the why behind the work.
Your “why” should wake you up in the middle of the night and pour gasoline onto the fire that is your life. It should break your heart. It should define you as a person.
Not just to “be a full time mom” but to know the heartbreak of not being there for snack time and conversation after school. To be prayerfully desperate to see the culmination of loving, encouraging and pouring into your children become the springboard for their eventual happy and healthy lives.
Not just to be a business leader, but to know that surge of infectious excitement when you are engaging with your team. To thrive off of igniting their purpose and mentoring their development as you influence the positive path of the organization.
Not just to be a volunteer, but to make philanthropy around a certain cause your life’s work, making a dent into the biggest problems we have in the world.
The options available to us regarding what dreams we can pursue are infinite. But we were created with special gifts and talents that make us perfect for only a select few of them. So we are going to have to spend focused time really thinking about, writing down and getting feedback from others on which gifts we have and the areas we should focus on.
For the overachievers out there (raising my hand) here’s a tip.
You can’t do everything.
Some people make the mistake of thinking they can.
You are going to have to choose where your energy is focused. If you try doing all of the things you will start sucking at all of them. That is the complete opposite of making an impact on others and on the world.
You also have to let go of everyone else’s dream, and you have to stop managing other people’s insecurities about yours. You don’t have to fit your dreams into someone else’s narrative or expectations.
Give yourself permission to consider what that would mean for you. It is completely freeing.
Find out the few things you want to be known for and spend your energy intentionally to support building the success around them.
Hence the idea of a portfolio life.
This may look like running a business using skills that you are blessed with, while giving 80% of profit to the foundation you are creating that helps to end poverty in Uganda. The world needs you to do both of those things. Because you are so excited and passionate about the people of Uganda, you will be providing a very good service in your business, making you more likely to succeed at both.
It may look like devoting 10 hours a week to paid consulting work so that the remainder of your time can be spent writing a book. You only have so much time, but when you are working for your why, you have the energy you need to move toward the life as a fulfilled and accomplished writer. And you are steadily honing your craft to prepare you when that time comes.
You just have to be prepared for hard work and bumps along the way. Change and failure will happen so get ready – it’s coming.
I look at my portfolio life like a set of seasons. I was really happy and fulfilled in my past corporate life for a time. I moved to nonprofit work that ended abruptly. I am in the season of a full time mom whose main purpose is to fill up the buckets of my children so they can grow to be their best selves.
What an unexpected blessing that has been for my whole family.
Now I have the space to go after some of the dreams I’ve had since I was a little kid. I’m learning so much about my capabilities and strengths and weaknesses.
I am trying to figure it all out as I write these words. I am failing a lot. I have no idea what the hell I’m doing about 50% of the time. And I’m hustling on the side to make sure I can continue on this path I believe I am called to do.
To bring it all to you.
Be Honest: Our calling and purpose is not going to reveal itself in the pretty package we always imagined it would. It’s going to take a lot of effort and risk and discomfort. We should expect failure along the way.
Be Kind: Your calling is a gift – one that is intended to be given away.
