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

by Jeff Goins

Every calling is marked by a season of insignificance, a period when nothing seems to make sense. This is a time of wandering in the wilderness, when you feel alone and misunderstood. To the outsider, such a time looks like failure, as if you are grasping at air or simply wasting time. But the reality is this is the most important experience a person can have if they make the most of it.

So what separates a season of failure from a lifetime of failure? First you must be willing to recognize hardship as an opportunity to learn, willing yourself to push through failure. Second, you must be careful to not succeed at the wrong things. You have to pay attention to passion and beware of the temptation of success. It’s not enough to be good at something; you must focus on what you are meant to do. And appreciate that your understanding of that, over time, just might change. So be ready to make more pivots along the way.

We lean in, realizing that failure is inevitable, but it’s also not a legitimate obstacle.

Your calling is not just one thing; it’s a few things. The trick is to not be a jack-of-all-trades but to become a master of some.