Whether you see work as a job, a career, or a calling (as covered in Part 4), no one is ever truly happy doing work that they don’t like, or just isn’t the right fit for their skills and interests.

In the final article of this ‘Finding your passion’ series, we are going to look at seven strategies to help you find work that is a good fit for you in your post-JW life. Work that brings you satisfaction regardless of whether it is your job, your career, or your calling.

1. Identify your interests and personality traits

In Part 2 of this series (hobbies) one of the recommendations was to look back to when you were about 10-12 years of age, before your brain was taken over by everything that comes along with being a teenager, to identify things you are naturally drawn to. While you have likely changed a lot since then, you may find that certain interests are inherently part of you, but they were railroaded by life (and a JW childhood). Now may be a good time to revisit this and use it to identify work that is more in alignment with your interests.

What we may also notice when looking back on ourselves is that certain personality traits have remained constant over time. Understanding your personality is also incredibly helpful when identifying the types of work that may suit you.

If you haven’t already done so, take a few different personality tests to get a feel for your strengths and weaknesses, and what types of situations bring out which personality traits in you. This can help to narrow down work options and career paths that will suit you. 

There are many personality tests available online if this is something you would like to explore further. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is possibly the most well-known and reliable instrument available, developed through extensive research and supported by many studies which verify its reliability and validity. 

2. Know your values

We spend a lot of our time and energy at work, so it is important that it aligns with our values. If it doesn’t, we may feel conflicted, dissatisfied, and unfulfilled. And not just with our jobs, but with our entire lives.

As mentioned in an earlier post, identifying your values is one of the best things you can do to get to know yourself. For so long we had our values forced upon us, and there were dire consequences if we didn’t accept them, but now, we can choose our own. Maybe you did once view work as ‘just a job’ because this helped you ‘put the kingdom first’, but now, your values and priorities have changed, and you are keen to find work that you really care about and can put yourself into.

Our values guide every decision we make, and, quite simply, if you are not living in a way which is inline with your values, your mental health will suffer. You may run about trying endless options and never really settling on any one thing or course of life, because you actually have no idea what you even stand for. Or you may stick at something far longer than you should, because you are holding on to old values that no longer serve you.

Whether we recognise it or not, everyone has values. Take the time to identify yours, including aspirational ones (ones you would like to have), and then let them guide your decisions about the type of work that will be a good fit for you.

Here is a useful video that can help:

The Body Language Guy, YouTube Video, 2022: Ignoring your values is making your life miserable!

And a list of 100 values here for you to do the exercise mentioned in the video.

Note: The Body Language Guy is not a mental health professional, but the information and the exercise is pretty close to one given to me by my counsellor.

3. Investigate all the new options that are now available!

Now we are not JWs, so many more doors are open to us! Defence forces, police, security, politics or political advising, finance and economics, jobs that involve travel and being away a lot, working in hotels, clubs, whatever it may be. There are just so many more options.

It can be hard to know what is out there when we have had to have blinkers on for so long, so the best thing you can do is research and expose yourself to as many new things as possible. Look at online courses, look up YouTube resources, and check out crazy long lists of career options (like this one here) to give you ideas. Test out potential options as a hobby first and see where it goes from there.

4. Apply the Japanese concept of Ikigai

The Japanese believe that everyone has an ‘Ikigai’, or a reason for living. The concept of ‘Ikigai’ combines what you love, what you are good at, what the world needs, and what the world is willing to pay for. Each component is a circle, and where these circles intersect, this is where your Ikigai is.

Take some time to think about each of these components:

• What do you love doing?
• What are you good at?
• What does the world need?
• What will the world pay you for?

Is there anything that ticks all four?

It can be difficult to know what you are good at or even what you really like about a job or career, so make a list of all your current and previous jobs, then write down everything that you liked and disliked about each one. Are there common themes? What types of work do you find satisfying? What aspects of work drive you nuts? What are you good at or have been told you are good at? Can you use this information to help you narrow down the type of work that will be a good fit for you?

After you have identified a few possibilities, give some thought as to whether the world needs this, and whether there is enough demand that the world is willing to pay for it. You may need to tweak your options somewhat to find something that fits in the intersection of all four circles.

You can read more about Ikigai here, and this is the book reference:

IKIGAI—The Japanese secret to a long and healthy life—Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles, 2017

5. Combine different interests, knowledge, and talents to create something new

Many people have also found their Ikigai by combining existing interests, talents, and passions to create something unique. We covered combining things in Part 3 in relation to finding a hobby, but if you want to turn this into a career, or at least a money-making venture, it needs to be something the world needs and is also willing to pay for.

Think about the various things you have good knowledge about, the various talents or skills you have, and the range of things that interest you. Can you combine any of these to make something new that the world needs and is willing to pay for?

Remember, you don’t need to apply for established, pre-defined roles. There are so many options online now to create your own opportunities.

Also keep in mind that you don’t have to turn a passion or interest into a career. You may want to keep it as just that, a passion or interest. Turning what you enjoy into a career does not guarantee that that you will ‘never have to work again’ (as people who have done this sometimes say). Starting your own business is stressful, it is competitive, and being passionate about something does not necessarily mean it will also be a successful business.

Running a business requires far more than just doing that thing you enjoy. It means marketing, administration, taxation, employees, overheads, insurance, very long hours at least for a while, and if it is online, video and audio editing and much more besides. Earning your living from something which is a passion can also have the effect of zapping the joy you once felt for that passion. This is not to say, ‘don’t try’, just weigh it all up before jumping on in.

Talk to people who have done what you are hoping to do, or something similar. Research the different aspects and gather information from different sources. You don’t need to over-do this or think yourself into inaction, but you do need some idea of what you are taking on. Then, if you decide it is right for you, just take the first step. You don’t need to have your full plan mapped out. Just take that first step. And then the next.

6. Practice and failure. Becoming ‘good’ at something takes effort

The concept of Ikigai requires there to be something that you are good at, and being good at something takes time and effort. If someone is better than you at something, it is almost guaranteed that they have worked at it for longer than you have, and failed at it far more times than you have.

As former JWs, we likely didn’t get a chance to become really good at something outside of our jobs, and well, being a JW. Are there aspects of being a JW that may help with your new career? Perhaps you can build on those skills and learn to apply them in a different context.

Success comes through failure. So don’t be afraid to fail. If it is something you genuinely want to learn and become good at, you will need to get used to failing. Remember, failure no longer means death, like it used to when we were JWs, so if you have found something you want to be good at, apply yourself, don’t get defensive when you do get things wrong, just pick yourself up, learn from it, and keep going. Eventually, if you stick at it long enough, you will become good at it. It is difficult to hate something you are good at, but getting to the part where you are really good at something takes time, perseverance, and a lot of discomfort.

See Mark Manson, ‘The Subtle Art of not Giving a F*ck’, (2016), Chapter 7: Failure is the way forward, for a great explanation on why failure, and coping with the pain of failure, is so important to success.

7. Change how you see your current work

Sometimes, we may not be in a position to make substantial changes to our work. We may have financial commitments and/or family members relying on us, and we are just not able to change jobs or careers.

While it can be soul destroying to feel trapped in a job you dislike, if this is where you are currently at, there are still things you can do to make it bearable. If nothing else can change, your own viewpoint of your work needs to change.

Firstly, think about the bigger picture. What service does the work you do provide? Who ultimately benefits from this? What would happen and who would be affected if you and others in your role didn’t do their jobs?

Identifying the answers to these questions can help clarify the purpose for your work. Anything without a purpose can seem futile, so this is a great way to remind yourself why your role is valuable to the community. The work itself may not set your world on fire, but recognising the value in the service you are providing can help you respect the work you do, take pride in it, and feel good about the end result.

Never minimise your work or feel like what you are doing is not as good as what anyone else is doing. Every type of work, no matter how seemingly unimportant, helps our local communities and society more broadly keep ticking over. Any work you do brings value to the world.

Secondly, even if you don’t enjoy your work, try to be on good terms with others in your workplace so you can feel part of the team and also enjoy the social side of things. These are aspects of work that many people value even more than the work itself. As JWs we were encouraged not to engage too much with ‘worldly’ colleagues, and our JW commitments sometimes affected our ability to be team players. But now there are no such restrictions. Knock yourself out. Bring on the Christmas parties.

Thirdly, you may be able to make small tweaks to your current work to bring it closer to what you want. What would need to change to make your work a bit more satisfying or fulfilling? Is there anything you can change to make that happen? Can you see a new way to add value to the business that you could potentially develop and have control over? Can you chat to your boss about exploring some possibilities?

And finally, remember that regardless of how much any of us may like or dislike our work, we are not what we do. Our work is not everything we are. Everyone has value outside of the work they do.  

Find ways to feel good about yourself outside of your work. Give yourself something to look forward to by scheduling in things you enjoy. Ensure too that you allow for time without any demands or pressure on you. Doing work that isn’t the right fit can be even more draining than work that lights you up, so give yourself time to recover. Self-care is foreign to us as former JWs, but if we don’t do it, no one else will. Listen to your body and give it what it needs to function effectively. This includes guilt-free downtime.

Accept where you are at

Accepting where you are at, wherever you are along your work or career journey and whatever the impact of your JW experience on your work life, will help you to avoid resentment and keep moving towards the life you want now.

Work is an important part of life, so it deserves some of our time and attention to try and get it right. If you are struggling to find the right type of work after leaving the JWs or feeling trapped in your current work, take a breath. Focus on everything else you have in your life which is good, and try the strategies listed above. Recognise when you may be dwelling too much on the past, and instead try to channel all that energy into creating a life that you genuinely enjoy.

Our JW past does not need to define us. It will always be a part of us, and we are who we are at least in part because of it, but it does not need to dictate our future.

Here’s to you finding work that works for you, whatever that may be.

Thanks for being here beautiful readers. I hope to see you next time 😊

Renee