How to Turn Your Work into a Calling

People who view their work as a calling experience higher job satisfaction and perform better. Do you wish you had a calling? All it takes is to change the way you view your work by focusing on the value that you provide.

A study of workers at a call center for a university fundraising organization shows how important it is to feel you are making a difference. Some of the callers read stories from other employees who described what they felt were the personal benefits of the job, including financial benefits and the development of skills and knowledge. Another group of callers read stories from the students who had benefited from the fundraising efforts and described how the scholarships they obtained had a positive impact on their lives.

A month later callers in the group that heard about the personal benefits of the job had the same number of pledges and raised the same amount of money as they had before the study. Callers in the group who heard stories about how people had benefited from the scholarships obtained more than twice the number of pledges and more than twice the amount of donation money. Learning how their work made a difference in people’s lives helped them to see its value and motivated them to drastically improve their performance.

Viewing your work as a calling will make you happier and more successful. So take a minute to identify the impact your work has on others. Start by connecting your daily actions to the company’s longer-term goals. List the tasks you do and write down the purpose of each one. What result does it lead to? Remember that the impact you have may not be on the end customer. It may come from helping coworkers accomplish their tasks.

There is value in every job. Which piece of the puzzle is your responsibility?