Discover Your Passion By Answering This Question
Shrewd + Beatific
“Christians should be aware of this revolutionary understanding of the purpose of their work in the world. We are not to choose jobs and conduct our work to fulfill ourselves and accrue power, for being called by God to do something is empowering enough. We are to see work as a way of service to God and our neighbor, and so we should both choose and conduct our work in accordance with that purpose. The question regarding our choice of work is no longer, “What will make me the most money and give me the most status?” The question must now be “How with my existing abilities and opportunities, can I be of greatest service to other people, knowing what I do of God’s will and of human need?” P. 67, Every Good Endeavor, Tim Keller
If the above passage does not make you want to run out and buy this book, let me further endorse its wisdom. Written by the founding pastor of New York-based Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Every Good Endeavor is one of the more impactful books I’ve read around the topic of understanding the Godliness of one’s occupation. It provided a contextual framework so that I could view my own career journey up until that point in a different light and spurred me towards my now forever-evolving comprehension of my vocational purpose.
Why is this a game-changer?
Here’s the reality: the secular world is so focused on the first question “what will make me the most money and give me the most status?” that it permeates our entire city and culture to the point where some days I feel caught up in it too! On the surface, the first part of this question seems logical. Of course, we need to pay for things and take care of ourselves, you might say. It’s actually wise to try to make more money to be a good steward of what’s given. (For more information on Stewardship, check out FINANCIAL PRINCIPLES: UNDERSTANDING THE STEWARD MINDSET).
However, the second part of the question reveals the implied motive of the first: that money and status will make me happy and feel better about my life than other people. You see, “most” is a relative term. It implies that you need to have more than everyone else out there to be satisfied, which, if you take a step back and think about it, is a destructive belief.
The wisdom behind the second question
The second question requires self-reflection and asks you to introspectively consider your external circumstances in light of your internal motives, instead of the other way around. It also realigns your heart towards service and loving one another. And lastly, it incorporates your knowledge of God’s character and purpose in your life.
Let’s break these three areas down further in order to figure out what this means for you in terms of discovering your passion and provide context for how using this has manifested itself in my life.
1. Discerning abilities, skills, and INterests
I would say most people fall into two camps: either they do not know how to identify their skills, let alone what kind of skills would collectively turn into a job description, or they know exactly what their skills are but are not sure how their passion is the result of individual skills.
First, I would go through every job you’ve ever had and write it down the job title. For each job I would create two lists “Liked” and “Disliked” and jot down all of the tasks or experiences related to that job that you liked and disliked. If I selected my caddying job - aka carrying other people's golf bags - from high school, it would look something like this:
Liked
- Being Outside
- Exercising
- Helpping golfers
- Being tipped based on performance
- Working only 5 hours
Disliked
- Receiving unsolicited flirting
- Carrying heavy bags
- Being spoken to condescendingly
- Forced to endure endless small talk
- Being considered to be invisible
Then you look at the list across all of the jobs combined and you start to see commonalities and patterns. You might have liked one job because it was performance-based compensation (i.e. tipping) and disliked another one because it was paid by the hour. The takeaway here is that you are uniquely motivated by the concept that your performance directly impacts your monetary outcome and you will likely thrive and/or feel more content working in an environment where part of your compensation is derived from your efforts.
Secondly, we need to get a list together of skills, abilities, and interests that exist outside of work. By that I mean, ask yourself the following questions: what can I do really well? What do people compliment me on? What makes me feel miserable? Why?
By way of example, I am often asked to do administrative tasks amongst my friends because I have a type-A personality that is very detail-oriented, which lends itself perfectly towards making plans, emailing, creating to do lists, splitting up the bill at restaurants, etc. So I would write down attention to detail, task-oriented, can assist others with getting things done.
On the ability-front, I love words of affirmation (both receiving and giving) and know that I would suffer in a work environment that does not value my encouragement of others but also lack of positive feedback for my work as well. For this one I would write down affirming, working environment that is receptive to feedback.
In terms of interests, I think it’s important to keep this list very broad at the onset. That way it is malleable to whatever God is asking you to do. For over five years my list included the following: kids, women, helping others, personal finance, education, China, family and empowerment. I had no idea what it would all add up to, but I just knew those were the buzz words that weighed on my heart and got my blood flowing. Only now do I see that I was able to combine women, helping others, personal finance, education, and empowerment into Shrewd + Beatific, but I still don't know if that's the end destination for these God-given interests or just a step along the way. What I can tell you is that I am excited to be on this journey with you and God!
What are your abilities, skills, and interests?
2. Utilizing your gifting to serve others
Often times I think people get caught up in making “serving others” very literal and, as a result, disqualify a lot of very practical and helpful things that do not seem to help others but actually do if your heart is in the right place. Below are two examples of things people can do that could, at first glance, appear to be primarily self-serving. However, if you shift your mindset you can see how these can easily become about serving other people in a God-honoring way:
- Provide an operational assessment and other consulting services to a fortune 500 company: Meet Mike. Mike works in Operations at my client and has way too much to do. If nothing changes, his workload will keep increasing. By taking a look at Mike’s day-to-day, I’m able to figure out what he does that is essential and what we can either get rid of or move to someone else. This will lighten his load, improve his work-life balance, and increase his productivity. I'm really there to help make Mike's life better.
- Write a personal finance, career, and relationship blog where I talk about my life experiences: Meet Suzy. Although she went to a good school, has an awesome job, and is smart, she’s not 100% sure that she is killing it at the personal finance game. She’s capable of winging it, but her confidence level with regards to how well she is doing and whether she is making the wisest choice is low. Through Shrewd + Beatific, I give her tutorials and anecdotes, ask her questions that help her think, and then respond her to emails as we process through her questions together. She is excited about working together to help develop a stronger sense of conviction that she’s on the right track and can successfully make these types of decisions on her own.
You can see that in both of these options, personalizing the impact for one person makes all the difference. It could be individual or collective, but the result is the same.
How can you improve someone else’s life through your current or dream job?
3. Interpreting God’s will and human need
This one is a hard to generalize because God’s will for me and my life will likely be different than what He is calling you to do with your life. Right now, I believe He is specifically asking me to be courageous and seen. The next logical question to ask is: what do people need? Do people need courageous people that are allowing themselves to be seen?
I believe that the short answer is: yes.
The longer answer is that when I was younger I was so grateful for the women that let me into their worlds, sharing their wisdom. I soaked it up because I wanted to understand how things worked and what the women I admired thought about things that mattered to me.
In other seasons of my life, I felt like I lacked a support system to process my questions and point me towards Christ when I wasn’t sure where to go.
In response to both of these situations, I want to be there for others. I want to pay forward the kindness that I received from those that invested in me but I also want to speak on topics that I felt were under represented in the larger dialogue of Christian women talking about being successful at life.
To what is God calling you? What do you believe is the human need you are uniquely called and/or qualified to meet?
When you combine your abilities, skills, and interests, with what other people need and then run it by what you feel like God's calling you to in light of both of the previous tasks, your passion will unfold. I'd be happy to discuss and process any of your questions around any of these steps. Just let me know in the comments!
