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Finding and Living A Calling at Work: Exploring Individual and Practitioner Strategies
Finding and Living A Calling at Work: Exploring Individual and Practitioner Strategies
Counseling psychologist
Undergrad at Boston College
PhD at University of Maryland
Currently an associate professor at University of Florida
I don’t know it all…
What are we Going to do Today?
Give a brief overview of calling from a scholarly sense, just enough so you
can talk intelligently to others about it but not too much to bore you!
But mainly we will spend talking about strategies…how exactly can you
help those you work with find, pursue, and live a calling?
Interaction
FAVOR: Please questions and make comments
So what is a calling anyway?
Calling
a summons by God to pursue a certain type of work (Dalton, 2001)
a consuming, meaningful passion people experience toward a domain (Dobrow
& Tosti-Kharas, 2011)
a divine inspiration to do morally and socially significant work (Weber, 1904)
an orientation toward work motivated by a quest for fulfillment and a desire to
impact society (Bellah et al., 1986; Wrzesniewski et al. 1997)
The place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet”
(Buechner, 1973, p. 95)
A career to which one strongly identifies, contributes to a sense of meaning, and
is guided by a transcendent force (Hagmaier & Abele, 2012).
A transcendent summons to do meaningful work (Bunderson & Thompson, 2009)
OK, Now I’m even more confused…
Calling
Meaning Prosocial
Summons?
?
The Technical Definition
35
30
25
Not at all true
20 Mildy true
%
Moderately true
15
Mostly true
10 Totally true
0
Have calling
Working Adults (~ 1,300)
35
30
25
Not at all true
20 Mildy true
%
15 Moderately true
Mostly true
10 Totally true
5
0
Have calling
Random Sample (1397 adults)
25
20
0
Have calling
And it’s a good thing to have
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSZYsyrP3Co
You can’t just have a calling
.40 .00
Calling Happiness
Living
calling
So How Does Someone Live it?
Calling Motivation
Access to
Job Crafting
Opportunity
Support
Calling
Meaning Prosocial
Summons?
?
Being Open to a Summons
???
Interests Interests
Skills Skills
Values Values
Personality Personality
But also important to assess social fit…
1. It’s really, really good for you too…because considering social fit
leads to doing prosocial work, which has enormous positive
consequences,
Calling
Meaning Prosocial
Being prosocial makes work better, across the board
Calling Motivation
Access to
Job Crafting
Opportunity
Support
It’s awesome to have a calling, especially when you can live it out.
Learning and living a calling is about finding that career path which is
uniquely meaningful and prosocial.
Work with people to explore what will bring them meaning by determining
what best fits for them and society as a whole.
Work to build fit but building motivation, job crafting, and support
And of course…know that a dark side does exist and can be tempting.
Email: rduf@ufl.edu