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

wrong.
This is why apprenticeship is so important. Often,
discovering what you’re meant to do with your life doesn’t
happen until you have spent significant time serving
someone else’s dream. We learn what a calling looks like
from mentors and predecessors before we can even begin to
trust our own voice of calling. Only after you’ve put
yourself in the shop of a master craftsman can you
understand what your craft requires. Humility is a
prerequisite for epiphany. Without it, your dream will be
short-lived and self-centered.
Second, you respond. Mere words will not suffice—you
must act. A true response to a call requires effort; you have
to do something. In Samuel’s case, he repeatedly got out of
bed, going to see what his teacher wanted, in spite of the
priest’s protests that he was not calling him. What Samuel
lacked in astuteness, he made up for with persistence.
Apparently, that’s all it takes. A little tenacity will get you to
your calling.
Third, you begin to believe. This is the paradox of
vocation. We think that passion comes first, that our desire
is primary; but if we are truly called, the work always comes
before we are ready. We will have to act in spite of feeling
unprepared. “The gifts do not precede the call,” someone
once told me. And as we step into our life’s work, we
discover that we have been preparing for this our whole
lives, even though in that very moment we feel insufficient.
This is how you know you’re called at all—the experience