Everyone has a purpose. To discover one’s purpose is an inward journey.
“Your real job in life is to figure out as soon as possible what that is, who you are meant to be, and begin to honour your calling in the best way possible,” writes Oprah Winfrey in The Path made clear.
- Do you feel trapped in a job that you do not particularly care about?
- Do you find yourself working just for the pay check?
- Were you compelled to choose a career due to family pressure?
- Is your work an expression of your identity and one from which you derive tremendous joy and satisfaction?
Our responses to these fundamental questions characterize our current orientation to work. How do we engage ourselves with the world of work? How do we derive meaning and sense of fulfilment from our interface with work?
Amy Wrzesneiwski, professor of Organizational Behaviour, Yale School of Management, talks about the three different contexts through which people identify with their work: job, career and calling orientation.
Let me begin with a real-life story. As a young girl growing up in Madras that is now Chennai, I recall taking bust route No. 3A from my home to school. There was one bus conductor who still lives in my memory, despite the intervening years. He was affable, kind, and courteous to all passengers. Ever smiling, he had an easy fluid way of negotiating with the passengers on a crowded bus and ensured that all passengers were not only comfortable but also complied with the rules and regulations. He did so with gentle humor, infinite patience, perseverance, passion, and poise. He clearly was someone who derived tremendous sense of joy and satisfaction from his work and radiated it to the passengers on the bus. His work ethics deeply impressed and inspired a young girl!
A person’s work orientation is influenced, impacted, and guided by one’s personality, core values and preferences. The following set of three questions offer a quick and effortless way to understand what each of these terms mean:
- What do I have to do? (Job orientation)
- What do I want to do? (Career orientation)
- What am I meant to do? (Calling orientation)
Job orientation: People who are job oriented have a transactional approach to work. For them, work is a means to an end. They are clear that they offer their time and skills in return for the paycheque that supports their lifestyle. They may not have deep engagement with the work and are more invested in their life outside the world of work.
Career orientation: It is said that a job is what you do for others, but a career is what you do for yourself! People with career orientation are motivated by professional growth and the recognition, success and prestige that is associated with moving up the organizational hierarchy.
Calling orientation: People with a calling orientation are those people for whom a profession is their passion and vice versa! They experience a deep sense of alignment between their vocation and who they are as a person. They are inspired and motivated by a feeling of doing their work and making a positive impact through their work. For them, their work fells connected with their purpose and values. They experience an abiding and deep personal and emotional connect with their work. Their work is an integral part of their identity, and they engage with a sense of joyfulness and apparent effortlessness with their work. For such people, their careers are a form of self-expression and deep fulfilment.
Work orientation is fluid and dynamic and is impacted by events in our personal and professional spaces. Besides work orientation is a spectrum (and not a binary) with most people having a combination of two orientations (e.g., job and career orientation).
Discovering one’s work orientation can, as Amy Wrzesneiwski, says, enables us to “craft” our engagement with work so that we redesign our responsibilities to better leverage our core strengths. According to her, rarely are jobs designed to align with the talents, skills and preferences pf aspirants and employees. Each of us must, therefore, with intentionality, nurture the art and craft of job crafting.
There is no right or wrong orientation to work. At the start of our journey, we begin by being job oriented and gradually, slowly but surely “discover” or calling. Are we willing to stay attuned to ourselves and courageously engage with ourselves and watch our calling bloom like a flower?
The article is part of a series on career intentionality.
