Do you find yourself lacking passion for your work? Do you wake up every morning and think it’s another day, another paycheck? You have no excitement, no energy. It’s just a job!
If so, it may be time to think about how to bring passion to your work. Passion creates energy, innovation and creativity. It makes you want to go to work and contribute to a larger cause.
In his book Great at Work, former Harvard professor Morton Hansen, reports on a study involving 5,000 people over a five-year period. The main finding was that in order to stay passionate, you have to match that passion with purpose.
Purpose is how you contribute to your company, organization, unit, or society. Passion is what you love. When the two of those go hand-in-hand, work becomes something you can finding meaning in, thus, it brings energy to the job.
Purpose is part of the life of faith. We believe we have been created with gifts and talents to be used to glorify God. His purpose in us and for us is unique and part of the discovery of the faith life. This is why The Purpose Driven Life was so popular – we all want to have purpose and believe we contribute to the greater good. Answering the question, “What am I here for?” is important.
When you match purpose with passion, you stay motivated. You leave the workplace relaxed and less stressed, and you don’t mind putting in extra hours because you realize your part is contributing to the whole. You are working on what you believe in and enjoy.
There are a number of things that take us away from our purpose and deflate our passion: negative people in the workplace, distractions like social media, and risk-avoidant environments.
Despite these distractions, you can find people who will encourage and mentor you, and you can mentor someone else too. You can develop your own personal challenges and push yourself to be excellent. Think of yourself as a life-long learner; there is always something new, interesting, and useful to know.
So if you struggle to find purpose in your job, reconnect with your values.
What is it you want to do that uses your gifts and talents and makes a difference in the world? Usually this doesn’t include goals like making a boatload of money or getting to the top. Those two things can happen, but they are not the driving forces.
In the process of matching passion with purpose, you keep your integrity and understand there is a calling on your life. Trusting God to lead us in that process doesn’t include conniving to get to the top. Apologist Os Guinness says,
“Do what you are!”
Use all that you have for God’s purpose in your life. Vocation and calling are not separate. Work, when done with good character, gives purpose and passion.
Finding passion and purpose in work
