The double-edged knife of having a calling: What can we learn from a decade of new research?

Do you feel like your career is a calling?

Like many creatives, it's the word that's always sat best for me when trying to understand my own career. Whether you call it 'following your dream', 'doing what you love', 'being bitten by the bug' or 'pursuing your passion', there's now a growing body of research on what it means to have a career as a calling.

We've learned a lot since we first coined the word 'vocation' (coming from the latin vocare meaning 'to call') and studies have been done on groups commonly associating their work with callings such as teachers, doctors, nurses, clergy, and creatives. Perhaps less expectedly zookeepers also fit into this category. Interestingly they seem to epitomise the double-edged knife of living out a calling in our modern times. They are typically highly qualified, committed individuals who see their work as benefiting the wider world (conserving endangered species) while also having to regularly engage in 'dirty-work' (literally shovelling shit in this case) at often exploitative working conditions and levels of pay.

But how do we define a career that's our calling, and what makes this kind of career so unique?

What is a Calling?

There are many proposed definitions of calling in career research. Most point towards a sense of duty and purpose, experienced as a push or pull from within or without, towards meaningful work. I think the following definition by Dobrow & Tosti-Kharas (2011) covers most of the bases;

"a consuming, meaningful passion people experience toward a domain"

One of the most recent and in-depth additions to our understanding of calling in the modern career comes from Work as Calling Theory (Dik & Duffy 2018). Drawing from over 200 studies across ten years of research, these theorists added additional elements to the concept of career as calling. They proposed that those who experienced their career as a calling tended to:

(a) approach their work in a way that ties it to a sense of meaning and purpose

(b) focus on prosocial contributions they can make through their work

(c) identify an external and/or internal force guiding them to a particular career

What's new here is the recognition that having a sense of calling involves 1. a 'prosocial' contribution - we not only want to do what we find to be meaningful but it's important that it has a positive impact on the world around us too and 2. there is a 'guiding force' which seems to be, well... calling us. These additional points are what separate having a calling from meaningful work or work done principally to meet financial needs.

The fact that many of us see our work as our passion and feel 'called' towards doing it both for ourselves and the greater good may account for why many creatives are so tenaciously resilient in pursuing it. While this can leave us vulnerable to some clear pitfalls it also offers us many possibilities in terms of living a fulfilling life.

The Bright Side of Callings

As you might imagine from all this talk of meaning and passion, careers as a calling are very much associated with what is referred to as 'life-enhancing outcomes' in the research. Before you get to enjoy any of these benefits though, you must first recognize that you have a calling (if indeed you do) and be in the process of responding to it.

Access to opportunity is a very real barrier to anyone hoping to follow their calling. It's estimated that only 10% of the world's youth will experience the freedom to actually pursue a calling. For many of us in the West with inherent privilege pursuing a calling may be a complex but it is, for most, a possibility.

Perceiving your career as a calling seems to set off a chain reaction. Once we've noticed a type of work that we find meaningful we tend to explore it. Indeed, the more we recognize what we find to be personally meaningful, the more we position ourselves intuitively around the people and places that can facilitate that calling. We tend to find our tribe and fit quite naturally. This is why for most of us career guidance in secondary education is less of a need. We are in the fortunate position of knowing what we love and where to find it already. 'Living' our callings actively in this way leads to a greater sense of career commitment and a stronger sense of personal identity. The story of who we are and why we do what we do makes sense to us and is one we enjoy.

Having this type of career clarity is becoming increasingly important for everyone. The average person may change career a number of times during their lifetime and it is not uncommon for many of us to move between multiple jobs and companies in a single year. Where once people could reliably identify themselves in relation to their company or place of work we are moving towards a world where more and more people will need to make sense of their own career stories in order to feel at home no matter where they are or what might happen.

Luckily for most creatives this is something we do naturally and having a sense of calling only bolsters our ability to do so. Despite all of its complexities, living out a calling has much to offer us.

Research has shown living out a calling to have positive effects in the following areas:

Job Satisfaction: getting to pursue what you find most meaningful in a self-directed way that leads to a greater good unsurprisingly leads to a greater sense of satisfaction with your work. It's worth noting here that satisfaction comes from our own subjective evaluations of past and present work experiences and future possibilities. Our level of satisfaction with our careers is very much of our own making and in the hands or mouths of others.

High performance: People living out their callings have been identified as high-performers in the work environment (there's a darkside here too - more below). We know to that there is a spill over effect here too in terms of our wider life. Feeling confident, competent and satisfied in our work tends to lead to better ...?

Motivation: the more intrinsic and self-directed our career goals are the more motivated we become. When we approach our careers or calling in a proactive fashion like this we tend to experience being more creative, committed and resilient in doing so. Interestingly, theorists suggest it the extrinsic goals (fame, wealth, and motivations of those working in the financial sector that can lead to kinds of manipulation, short-sightedness and poor leadership that resulted in the economic crash of 2008 - need to add in a missing word, and close the brackets.

Well-being: Where we have the opportunity to engage with our calling actively, and do so, we typically experience greater wellbeing. This is in part due to the feeling of competence we get from doing what we love and what we feel we can do well. Also, due being around the types of people, ideas and places we find interesting and engaging. The fact that living out a calling is inherently self-directed means we get all the benefits that come with being master of your own fate in that regard.

The Role of Support.

We know that those with a calling who have access to career support do better in terms of living them out. Their experience is generally more positive than those who feel that there are more barriers to their career as a calling than available support. Research in this area highlights the need for support at every age and stage of our careers. We need gatekeepers, people of influence, family members, peers and close friends all to recognise the challenges of pursuing a calling and to do what they can to support us in whatever ways they can. No matter where you are in your career you’ll be in a position to support another too. Either as a friend, peer, person of influence, advocate, mentor etc

Support is a mediating factor influencing our experience of our callings as being on the bright or dark side. Thankfully there is a growing understanding of this and organisations like Minding Creative Minds in Ireland and Freelancers Make Theatre Work in the UK are among a growing number actively supporting creative careers in this way.

We will all have our own version of the dark side of our career as calling, but what comes up again and again in the research and how might we tackle it?

The Dark Side of Callings

Awareness is often the first step when addressing any problem situation. So what are the blind spots for those who are pursuing careers as calling?

Not answering the call: Research has highlighted that those who have a sense of calling do roughly as well as those who don't in terms of well-being and performance. It was a third group that seemed to come out worst; those who perceived they had a calling but were not actively pursuing it. See the questions below to evaluate your level of engagement and what areas might need attention. It's important to note that our callings can and do change over time in the same way that what we care about shifts overtime. Where a calling can't be pursued actively, or where we meet a dead-end in one way or another, it can be helpful to get the cycle going again by looking to find a way to make your work more meaningful. Exploring in this way, for most, is what leads to identifying a calling in the first place.

Mismatch in perceived and actual ability: One study on musicians showed how we can become blinded by our own sense of calling and assume that our talent doesn't need development. Our talents, skills and abilities are massive resources and they need nurturing, calling or not. Having an eye on how we are maintaining and building upon our skills and abilities is crucial for a sustainable career.

Financial insecurity: Was it not ever thus? A recent study looking at the experience of more than 100 creatives from across Europe who had moved from capital cities to more regional ones as a result of the cost of living reported a number of positive outcomes. By moving to a smaller or more rural setting (for many their hometowns) creatives reported they were able to make more art, collaborate more with other creatives and their quality of life increased. For those of us living in capital cities reaching the same outcomes might mean identifying your basic need for good living and aiming to make them the bottom line. For most creatives it means structuring our work in ways that support us both financially and creatively in the long term.

The Big Three: These have been particularly associated with those who feel their careers to be a calling as opposed to freelancers more generally. Love is blind, as the old saying goes and it would seem that loving what can regularly blind us to the risks of the following:

• Workaholism: Having a career we love can of course lead to a dominant focus on career over other key areas of life. Sometimes the very nature of our working contracts and environments mean we have to advocate very actively for a sustainable balance. The absence of which can lead to...

• Burnout: I think of this as work that does not meet our needs. Typically our needs for rest, free time, hobbies, health, wellbeing, and personal relationships are key in protecting us from burnout.

• Exploitation: When there are people who love what they do so much they'd do it for free in a sector where demand is much lower than supply, exploitation seems to be a recurring issue. Again, knowing what your needs and rights are here and developing knowledge and ability to advocate for them can often lessen, or in some cases eradicate, exploitation. At the very least knowing it when you see it creates the opportunity to avoid it in the same place in the future.

Pursuing your calling in the 21st century has as many possibilities as it has pitfalls. What's different today (and moving forward) is the ever increasing rate of change and uncertainty we face. By taking a wider overview of the risk and rewards of our callings we can begin to map our own ways forward. In a word, adaptability will be the key skill for managing a sustainable career path over time. Being curious about the options that lie around you, concerned about the 'dark sides' in the same way a sailor would be of rocks. Knowing what areas of your career are both within and without your ability to control and learning to focus strategically on the former. Being skilled in these areas enables those who can pursue a calling to do so with an increasing confidence to meet whatever changes they might encounter along the way.

To what degree are you currently living out your calling?

• Do you have regular opportunities to live out your calling? If not, what can you start doing to create more opportunities to do so that lies fully within your control?

• Are your current roles, practices, and jobs fully aligned with your values and calling? If not, how can you move the dial a little further in each area towards doing so? How can you make your work more personal and meaningful wherever it is?

• Are you currently engaging in activities that align with your calling? If not, what can you start? What could you experiment with doing?