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

by Jeff Goins

when you find yourself at the pinnacle of personal greatness, you may just be getting started.

“life isn’t a support system for art. It’s the other way around.”

Life is not an inconvenience to the work we dream of; it’s the reason we do it in the first place.

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

As you strive to achieve your life’s work, be careful of at what costs you chase it.

Life is not a support system for your work; your work is a support system for your life. No amount of success is worth losing the ones you love the most.

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

Your calling is not a destination. It is a journey that doesn’t end until you die.

There is a great temptation in the pursuit of meaningful work to lose yourself in the process. That’s what an addiction promises: total annihilation of self.

The real job in the work we do is to understand this temptation and use it to our advantage. Every compulsion is not a calling, but your life’s work may begin with a prompting so strong it borders on obsession. What you must do is learn to temper it, to live in the tension of being driven without driving yourself mad. To master the craft so it doesn’t master you.

to recognize the inclinations in us that, when left unchecked, would destroy us.

we don’t have to give in to despair. We can trust that legacy follows faithfulness. There is always a deeper story.

When it comes to your work, there will be things you won’t accomplish. This is the work of an artist who bravely steps into their field with bold aspirations, while recognizing the work will never be finished.

The challenge for any artist—and we are all creating something on the canvas of our lives—is to do our work well while letting go of the result. If we don’t do this, we may very well drive ourselves and those around us crazy. And that’s the real tragedy—not that we leave this world with work unfinished, but that the work robs us of the life we could have lived.

work hard and passionately, but acknowledge the limitations of what one

life is capa...

a healthy fear of death drives a person to continue creating until the very end, but with that fear must come the acceptance that even your life’s work will, in some ways, remain unfinished.

tragedy into triumph,

the work of a calling never ends.

success isn’t so much what you do with your life; it’s what you leave behind.

leaving a legacy that matters.

The seven characteristics of a calling—awareness, apprenticeship, practice, discovery, profession, mastery, and legacy—are not a formula. They are a description of the path you are already on.

Awareness: Before you can tell your life what you want to do with it, you must listen to what it wants to do with you.

community.

Your life is preparing you for what’s to come.

Don’t take the leap; build a bridge.

Don’t push through obstacles; pivot around them. Let every mistake and rejection teach you something. Before a season of success, there often comes a season of failure.

Mastery: A calling is not just one thing. It’s a few things, a portfolio that isn’t just your job but the life you live.

Legacy: Your calling is not just what you do; it’s the person you become—an...

It requires faith. It cannot be something so obvious that you can easily explain it. It must be mysterious.

start working on your calling today. Don’t overcommit.

Instead of planning out your ideal week, focus instead on the next year.