The Art of Work: A Proven Path to Discovering What You Were Meant to Do

by Jeff Goins

The experience of finding your calling can be both mysterious and practical.

this is the way we live our lives—not as research projects and book reports—but as anecdotes and emotions.

My hope is these stories connect with you in ways that plain facts cannot, and in reading them, you too are changed.

these are the cards we’ve been dealt, and we’ll just play them the best we can.”

what makes a life extraordinary aren’t the chances we get, but what we do with them.

perseverance and dedication—the narrow path that few find.

At times you will have to trust your gut, and at others you will need to do what is uncomfortable and even painful. But as you go, there will be signs along the way, markers ensuring that you are headed in the right direction.

Awareness Apprenticeship Practice Discovery Profession Mastery Legacy

an order emerging from such chaos.

your life matters, your life is significant, and things are happening that you don’t even fully understand

Each of us has had surprises and setbacks in life, disappointments that have disrupted what we thought was the way.

Leave Nothing Unsaid, a program and book that helps people of all ages write letters to their loved ones.

What if there were some things you couldn’t control, but how you reacted to those situations made a difference?

Human beings, he argued, are not hardwired for seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. They want meaning.

We are looking for something more, something transcendent—a reason to be happy.

three things that give meaning to life: first, a project; second, a significant relationship; and third, a redemptive view of suffering.

It’s an important moment that always seems to happen in the mind before it unfolds in real life. This choice, though, is always preceded by something deeper, a nagging feeling that there must be more.

What happens if you don’t do this? That’s what should really scare you.

A calling goes beyond your abilities and calls into question your potential.

Parker Palmer, don’t just tell your life what you want to do with it; listen to what it wants to do with you.9

Your life, though a mystery, is trying to tell you something. Are you listening?

When you are surrounded with unlimited opportunities, inaction seems like the safe choice.

At times we all need moments that force us to wake up, that command our attention.

These moments happen when we least expect, whether we want them to or not.

Every single thing that has ever happened in your life is preparing you for a moment that is yet to come. —UNKNOWN

Ten years. That’s how long it took to master a craft.

“No man is an island,” John Donne wrote, and this is better news than we realize.2 We are all sharing the same path as we march toward our destinies.

Your mentor may not be the teacher you dreamed of, and that’s the point. This is your education of what is, not what you think should be. A teacher who challenges you, who doesn’t meet your expectations, who forces you to think and act differently, is exactly what you need. That is, after all, the job of an educator.

“The teacher appears when the student is ready” is a nice-sounding cliché, but the truth is the student is never ready. Throughout our lives, we will encounter a number of people who will appear at times, ready to instruct, and it will be our job to recognize them.

Each person serves a purpose: some will arrive at just the right time to cheer you on, while others are there to identify with the struggles you’re living. And even others will show up when you need them the most.

As Paulo Coelho writes, “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

Universe

When a person is determined to not just succeed but to do work that matters, the world makes room for such ambition.

she was ready to take action. And that small step made all the difference.

Atelier is a French word meaning “workshop,” and during the Middle Ages these were the main areas of education for artists.

Every place you go, every person you meet, every job you have is a chance to gain greater clarity in your self-education.

Clarity

Life is the classroom, and if you are paying attention, you can recognize the daily lessons available. Each day is a new page in a textbook you never complete, and as you sit in the student’s seat, you realize the apprenticeship has already begun.

We all want to find someone who wants to invest in us, someone who cares, without realizing those people are already in our lives.

The teacher appears when you least expect.

Apprenticeship, then, isn’t a class you take or a mentor you meet—it’s a choice you make. And in that case, an accidental apprenticeship isn’t much of an accident at all; it’s the intentional process of choosing the opportunities you need to create your life’s work.

At the times when you feel stuck, the right thing to do is take a risk and go “all in” with whatever the scariest option might be.

Excellence, then, is a matter of practice, not talent.

With the growth mindset, however, potential is unlimited. You can always get better. For this kind of person, the goal is not so much to be the best in the world but to be better than you were yesterday.

Daniel Coyle, author of a book called The Talent Code, the right kind of practice is a process of repeated tasks that end in failure. You fail and fail and fail again until you finally succeed and learn not only the right way to do something, but the best way.11 This is what he calls “deep practice,”

The art of doing hard things requires an uncommon level of dedication.

Where does motivation come from? “It starts with a spark,” Daniel Coyle told me in an interview. “You get a vision of your future self. You see someone you want to become….

There will always be those “spark” moments when who he is and what he is meant to be shine through.

“eminent performance,” when a person goes “beyond the knowledge of their teachers to make a unique innovative contribution to their domain.”

“When you see a little hope, doors will open…. Never give up, because all you need is a little hope.”29

Success is a process of persevering through difficulties, but it’s also about knowing yourself.

You misapply the principles of practice and end up succeeding at the wrong thing or discovering your career is somehow a shadow of your true calling.