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

by Jeff Goins

True mastery is about greatness, about doing something that pushes the limitations of what others think is possible or even sensible.

Peter Senge, a professor at MIT, describes mastery as something that “goes beyond competence and skills … It means approaching one’s life as a creative work.”

Mastery isn’t about straight As or the highest salary in the company. It’s not even about being the most popular in your field. It’s about understanding your potential and then dedicating your life to pursuing that ideal.

this is the role of work in our lives—not only as a means to make a living, but as a tool to make us into who we were born to be.

fame was more of a distraction than an ally.

“I stopped trying to be famous and focused instead on trying to be successful.”

“Success isn’t about money. It’s about setting a goal—and then achieving it.”

Only then did he begin to see the results he had hoped for. For my friend, this meant more time with family, greater financial freedom, and a legacy for his children—those were his goals. The money that followed was a by-product.

How would people work when there was no central purpose to unite them? Sayers feared they would return to an inferior work ethic, which could create long-term problems for the West.

If we could make this change and think of work the same way we think of play, treating it as something we do for pleasure, it could change the world.

Increases in income—once you’ve reached a certain threshold above the poverty line—do not make people happier. “Increases in material well-being don’t seem to affect how happy people are,” Csikszentmihalyi said.

So if fame and fortune aren’t the secrets to happiness, what is? It’s a mental state he calls “flow.” Flow is the intersection of what you are good at and what challenges you—where difficulty and competency meet.

When your competency exceeds the difficulty of a task, you are bored. And when the difficulty exceeds your competency, you are anxious.

If the work we do is only about our own personal success or recognition, then we will eventually lose interest or become overwhelmed with anxiety. But if it’s about a greater good, if we are here to serve the work and not the other way around, then we get up every day with a new challenge, a purpose. Which sounds a lot like a calling.

“Don’t search for your calling,” he said. “Explore, try new things, keep your feet moving. Something will grab you. It will call to you. It is no different than falling in love.

A life isn’t significant except for its impact on other lives. —JACKIE ROBINSON

Your calling is not a job. It is your entire life.

You have to have a goal, to know where you’re going, in order to get there.

Poverty and wealth are concepts that cannot be defined merely by what you have or make.

poverty is more than a context. It’s a mindset.

Success Isn’t About You I always thought pursuing a dream was about you, that it was inherently selfish. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. It wasn’t until I got everything I wanted in life that I realized none of it was for me.

could do what I do best and use it for good. When I returned home, I started working not for myself but for all those people I met in Africa.”

The problem today is that many of us see our jobs just as a duty, something we’re obligated to do to pay the bills. Or we see it as a means of improving our lives, of making so much money we can buy all the things we’ve ever wanted. But neither option will satisfy.

they’re using their resources and influence to improve other people’s lives.

A few generations ago, men went to work or war and rarely got to see life beyond their careers. A generation ago, our parents had to answer the question of what they would do with the last third of their lives. How would they spend their retirement? Would it be squandered on silly things or invested in significance?

the question of legacy isn’t a matter of if you live long enough or when you retire; it’s a matter of what you will do with what you have right now.

If significance is what matters to you, you can structure your life and work in a way that allows you to live your legacy now. In fact, your giving doesn’t have to be a by-product of your success; it can be the very thing that drives it in the first place.

“We Are Your Symphony” In the film Mr. Holland’s Opus, Glenn Holland is a frustrated music teacher trying to compose a masterwork in the margins of life.

Sometimes all the little things in life aren’t interruptions to our calling. They are the most important part.

Life has a funny way of teaching us that sometimes the most important stuff is the ordinary stuff. The smallest moments, the ones we think are insignificant, are the ones we will cherish the most.

used to think that your calling was about doing something good in this world. Now I understand it’s about becoming someone good—and letting that goodness impact the world around you.

whether we recognize it or not, this quest we’ve been talking about is not just a physical one; it’s a spiritual one. It is, in a way, a journey of becoming.

We spend too much time pretending to be someone else. We try to recreate a life we admire instead of the one we were born for.

the lucky ones discover a different path. Or rather, they forge one where there was no way, departing from expectation in order to become who they are.

Every hero’s journey included some sacred task that culminated in a deeper understanding of who they were born to be.

Through a personal quest—some great feat that required every talent, skill, and strength they could muster. In other words, they had to work.

as we endeavor to do meaningful work in the world, we are becoming ourselves. We are, as Viktor Frankl wrote, looking for a reason to be happy.

“I want to be the kind of writer I’m supposed to be.”

your vocation is more of a magnum opus than a single masterpiece.

your calling is not a single event in your life; it’s the whole body of work you make—including your job, your relationships, and the legacy you leave behind.

Finding Forrester, Sean Connery plays a writer in his latter years of life,

All that to say: when you find yourself at the pinnacle of personal greatness, you may just be getting started.

Your life, when lived well, becomes your calling—your magnum opus.

“It was never a question of if. It was always a matter of when.”

Life is not a support system for your work; your work is a support system for your life.

calling is about more than me.

Art is never finished, only abandoned. —LEONARDO DA VINCI

Every person faces the ultimate insufficiency of their work.

There is a great temptation in the pursuit of meaningful work to lose yourself in the process.

It’s to work hard and passionately, but acknowledge the limitations of what one life is capable of.