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Stanley Leary demonstrates how to balance studio strobes with sunset light while photographing six keiki (children) in traditional hula attire along the beach at Old Kona Airport Park in Kailua-Kona, Hawaiʻi. Photo by Dorie Griggs.
When we talk about a calling, we often picture a particular job. For a photographer, that might mean making pictures for a mission organization, covering important stories, or finally earning a living with a camera.
But what happens when that position disappears? Or when the work you feel drawn to do doesn’t pay enough to support your family?
Those questions have been part of my own journey. Recently, Dr. Arthur Brooks’s Office Hours episode, “How to Create Your Calling,” gave me another way to think about them.
Brooks argues that a calling is about how we approach our work, beyond our title. He offers three practices for developing that sense of calling: look within, focus on what fascinates you, and serve others.
Those practices connect to several things I’ve been writing about: purpose, financial responsibility, and understanding ourselves.
What Do I Mean by a Calling?
As a Christian, I understand calling as a response to God that includes how I love people, use my gifts, and carry out my responsibilities. A particular job may provide a place to do that, but my calling reaches beyond an employer or a paycheck.
For me, photography is one way to help people see and understand one another. Writing, teaching, and helping an organization communicate can serve that same purpose.
That broader understanding matters. If I attach my entire calling to one position, losing that position can feel like losing my purpose.
Brooks’s framework invites a different question: How can I bring purpose to the work and relationships in front of me?
1. Look Within: Practice Honest Self-Curiosity
Brooks’s first practice is to examine what makes your work meaningful. Pay, recognition, and opportunity matter, but they cannot answer every question about what makes a life fulfilling.
In “The Most Important Work You’ll Ever Do (And Why Your Creativity Depends on It),” I wrote about self-curiosity: paying attention to our reactions, strengths, blind spots, and growth.
That is useful work when considering a calling. We need enough honesty to recognize both what draws us toward service and what draws us toward applause.
A successful assignment deserves reflection just as much as a disappointing one. What made the work satisfying? Was it the recognition, the learning, the connection with someone, or seeing the photographs help accomplish something?
A place to begin: Think about three experiences that felt meaningful. Write down what you were doing, who benefited, and what mattered to you about each one. Look for a pattern that extends beyond a job title.
2. Follow Your Fascination: Notice What Keeps You Curious
Brooks’s second practice is to pay attention to fascination. He distinguishes sustained interest from simply looking for fun work.
That resonates with how I think about teaching. Curiosity keeps someone asking questions after the assignment is finished. It encourages the practice and discovery that deepen a craft.
For storytellers, that curiosity might begin with a camera, then grow into an interest in people, communities, faith, or the reasons people make difficult choices.
It also permits us to learn something unexpected about ourselves. An unfamiliar assignment or a job we took for practical reasons may introduce us to work we want to explore further.
Being good at something is useful information. So is noticing what we keep wanting to understand.
A place to begin: For a week, notice the questions, conversations, and subjects you return to without being prompted. Choose one small way to explore a recurring interest—an interview, a personal project, a class, or helping someone solve a problem.
3. Serve Others: Connect Your Work to a Person
Brooks’s third practice connects the first two to other people: serve others.
In “The Wealth of Pursuing Your Calling,” I reflected on Dave LaBelle’s example of measuring success through purpose and the lives we touch.
That changes the questions I bring to an assignment. Alongside making strong photographs, I can ask: What does this person need? What does the audience need to understand? How can I help someone feel comfortable enough to share honestly?
Service also happens between assignments. Listening carefully, sharing knowledge, and helping a colleague all put our values into practice.
A place to begin: Identify one person your work affects. Ask what would make your contribution more useful to them, then act on something you learn.
A Calling Still Has to Meet Real Life
In “When Your Dream Doesn’t Pay the Bills,” I wrote about the jobs I took after losing a position with a mission organization. Those jobs provided income while I continued learning and moving forward.
Brooks’s ideas also help me consider how to practice purpose during those seasons. Providing for a family, treating customers with care, and supporting coworkers still matter today, even as we pursue another opportunity.
Meaningful work does not guarantee sufficient income. Faith and financial planning belong in the same conversation. We can value service, charge fairly, and make responsible decisions about what our families need.
Brooks also warns against allowing work and success to consume our identity. A sense of calling needs room for friendship, family, faith, and rest. Loving our work does not remove our responsibility to care for those relationships—or ourselves.
Begin Where You Are
I’m coming to understand calling as something we discern and practice over time. We learn about it through reflection, curiosity, service, and the responsibilities of ordinary life.
The next step may be a new position. It may be a different approach to the work we already have. It may begin with a conversation that helps us understand someone else.
For this week, try three questions:
- What am I learning about myself?
- What keeps drawing my curiosity?
- Whom can I serve with what I have today?
We may not know where those questions will lead. We can still begin answering them through how we live and work today.
Credit: The three practices discussed here come from Dr. Arthur Brooks’s Office Hours episode, “How to Create Your Calling.” I apply his ideas to photography, storytelling, faith, and earning a living through these reflections and exercises. Learn more through Dr. Arthur Brooks’s YouTube channel.
