The Secret to Success

Everyone wants to be successful and happy, but few really nail it. Yet there is a key which works for most of us, most of the time.

Almost every successful and happy person you know has this characteristic: they’re doing what they were born to do. All of their natural talents, experience, and training are being brought to bear on a craft or profession that they love.

What could be simpler? And in nearly every case, the world is better because of it.

I think of a pastor friend who has a special knack of listening to the heartbroken and knowing how to bind their wounds. A financial advisor who knows his clients’ hopes and dreams better than they do, and has a knack for helping them realise their dreams. A lawyer who helps elderly parents plan for a time when they will no longer be able to care for a disabled adult child. A personal care worker who, looking past the cranky old man, sees someone whose dignity has long since been stripped away and gets him talking about the days when he counted for something.

All of these people love what they do. They don’t have jobs– they have callings.

In a perfect world, we’d all have callings, b
ut for so many of us, life is a rut. We work for a paycheque, counting the minutes until the weekend when for two precious days we get to do what we want to do, until Monday’s grind returns, when again we have to do we do what we have to do. Week after week, month after month, year after year. Vacation is an escape, and retirement can’t come soon enough. We buy lottery tickets, hoping for luck.

Why are so many of us so unhappy at work? Simple– it’s because we are grinding away at what we have to do, not what we love to do.

All of this seems hugely unfair. The lucky ones get to love life and do what they were born to do, and the unlucky ones grind away at what they have to do to survive.

But it’s not about luck. Luck is never within your control. Choice always is. Expecting the Good Fairy to wave her wand is wishful thinking. Moving yourself from the job you hate to the job you love is a matter of choice, planning, and sweat. But it can be done.

This is what I teach and coach. Do we need to talk?