In Part 3 we pulled apart the various JW views of work and how these may have affected us, but now we are going to focus on identifying your own values about work and what you want from it in your post-JW life.

Like pretty much everything in our lives after leaving the religion, the purpose for our work has also now totally changed. We are not working to please God, and we are certainly not working just to please an organisation that has absolutely nothing to do with our work. So, what’s the purpose for work in your life now? Anything without a clearly defined purpose can seem a bit pointless, so let’s take some time to understand what you want from it, and how that motivates you. This will help you make better decisions when it comes to finding work that is the right fit for you.

Job, Career, or Calling. Which one are you?

According to an article in Psychology Today, there are three different ways that we tend to see work: as a job, as a career, or as a calling. While there may be some blending, generally one or another is more prominent in us.

Work as a job

If you view work as a job, the role of work in your life is basically to support your life outside of work. Those who view work as a job are more about working to live, not living to work. They prefer jobs which don’t interfere with their personal lives, and likely don’t identify too strongly with the work that they do. They will be reasonably comfortable doing any type of work that is somewhat suitable to them, as long as it pays the bills and doesn’t eat into their own time too much.

While this is very much akin to the JW view of work, if this is what you genuinely want and it works for you, great. Don’t buy in to any pressure to climb corporate ladders or do work you really don’t enjoy just for the status or pay. Make the most of your time outside of work and enjoy the additional time you now have without all of the JW commitments. There is absolutely nothing wrong with viewing work this way.

Work as a career

If you view work as a career, the role of your work is mainly to bring you prestige, status, a good pay packet, and all of the things that this will enable. Career focussed people enjoy climbing whatever ladder is in front of them, and they thrive on the prestige which comes with it. Additional hours do not worry them too much, and they love any added responsibility which comes with higher levels. The nature of their work doesn’t worry them too much, it’s the success, social standing, and money, that motivates them.

Because career focused people love tackling ladders, it is also likely that as JWs, they may have climbed the JW ladder too, moving up the hierarchy within the organisation. If this is you, and now you are out, it is possible you may deeply feel the loss of your position within the organisation. It may be hard to accept that you might not be able to recreate that level of status outside of the JW organisational structure.

You may also be more likely to compare yourself negatively to others who appear to have done so much ‘better’ than you on the outside. You may look at the material things others have, or the status they achieved, and find it hard to accept that your time as a JW has robbed you of the potential to have the career and life you really wanted.

Try not to be down on yourself and where you are now, or compare yourself to others. They didn’t need to extract themselves from a high-control group before trying to get where they are. Work with what you have to do what you can. With the right attitude, it is still possible to develop your career, it may just not be your first choice. Is further study an option now? Can you get in via an entry level position somewhere and work your way up? Can you perhaps start your own business?

All this naturally depends on your level of education and work experience outside of the organisation, and how much you swallowed the JW rhetoric about higher education or focusing on your career. You may have had selective hearing in this area and developed your career and/or education anyway. If so, good for you. Your transition to life after leaving will be much easier!

Work as a calling

If you fall into the third group and view work as a ‘calling’, your work is an integral part of your life and identity. The purpose of your work is to bring you meaning and personal fulfilment. You strongly identify with the type and nature of work that you do, and you view work as a form of self-expression. If your work isn’t in-line with your values, you struggle to do it. You will also identify strongly with the idea of being ‘passionate’ about your work, and this is more important to you than pay, status, and other rewards. 

If you are in this group, you are likely now striving to find work that is the right fit for you and your values, interests, skills, and strengths. You may feel down on yourself if you haven’t quite worked out what it is that you want to do yet. Well-meaning people may say that you don’t need to be ‘passionate’ about your job to live a good life (and that is true), but this is cold comfort if you have a ‘calling orientation’ towards your work and feel that you have more to give, but you just don’t quite know what it is… yet. 

The strategies in Part 5 will help with this.  

How does this help with decisions?

While lines may blur in that someone with a job orientation or calling orientation may still be keen on good remuneration, conditions, and moving up the corporate ladder, understanding the purpose of your work in your life, and what motivates you to work, will help you make the best decisions for you when it comes to improving your satisfaction with your job or career. It can help you understand what types of jobs will be right for you, and also whether there are ways to improve your current job so that it suits you better.

Knowing our natural tendencies towards work will also help us to stop comparing ourselves to others, because we will know why we have made the choices we have and feel confident that they are right for us, regardless of what anyone else is doing.

As an example, if you currently have a lot going on outside of work and right now your work is more of a means to an end, if you are offered a promotion that requires late nights and weekends, you may likely decide that the extra pay is just not worth it. You need your time far more than you need the additional hours and stress that a promotion will bring. If you are career driven however, you will jump at the chance and probably fall over your own feet in the excitement. Hang the stress and late nights, bring on the promotion. And if your work is your calling, you will likely only accept promotions if they bring you more in alignment with your own personal fulfilment, regardless of the increased pay, status, and/or workload.

Making good decisions about our work (or anything really) requires us to accept wherever we may be at in our lives right now, which includes everything that has happened in our lives to date. We can’t undo any of that. But we can make good decisions about where we want to go from here, and ensure that, at the risk of a cliché (but one that is very relevant to us), our past does not define our future.

In the final article in this series we will cover several strategies to help you find work that is a good fit for you, your skills, your interests, and your values. Work you can be passionate about. 

Thanks for being here again beautiful readers.

Until next time,

Renee