In the movie “Rocky,” there’s a scene where Rocky confronts Mickey to ask why he’s always been so disappointed in him over the years. Rocky says:

“You know, I’ve been comin’ here for six years, and for six years you’ve been stickin’ it to me. I wanna know how come.”

“You don’t wanna know.”

“Yeah, I wanna know how come.”

“You wanna know?”

“I WANNA KNOW HOW!”

“OK, I’m gonna tell ya. ‘Cause you had the talent to become a good fighter. And instead of that, you became a leg breaker for some cheap, second-rate loan shark!

“It’s a livin’.”

“It’s a WASTE of life!”

This is nothing new, just a typical case of not following one’s calling. Most people are in this situation, either because they never found their calling in the first place, or they lost their way at some point. But nothing is more important than knowing for sure what you’re supposed to do with your life. If you get this one thing right, then almost everything else naturally falls into place.

When you spend the bulk of your time doing the wrong thing, you find life to be very hard because you’re living someone else’s life instead of your own. Because you don’t really want to do the things you do, you find it hard to get motivated, or even just to get up in the morning. Everything you manage to get done takes a lot of effort for mediocre results. You’re always sick, tired, and afraid that your situation could become even worse. You resent having to do what you do, and that makes you miserable even when you’re not working.

On the other hand, if you follow your calling, your life is wonderful. Getting things done is effortless because you have boundless enthusiasm and incredible talent for what you do. You have no problem getting down to work because there’s nothing you’d rather be doing. You don’t have to choose between doing what you love and making money because the world places great value on what you do. The immense joy you receive from your work spills over into other areas of your life, and onto other people. Everyone wonders what you’re on, and how they can get it.

If finding your calling is so important, then why does hardly anyone do it?

Many people think that their calling is dictated by their major. You picked the major that was best suited for your abilities, and now you’ve invested a lot of time and money in studying that field, so you have to stick with it, right?

Um, no. There are certainly some elements of your major that fit you well, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to get the obvious job that corresponds to your major. It’s not realistic to expect to decide on your calling before you graduate anyway. You might choose to put a creative twist on the common path in your field, or maybe even do something completely different. What you learned in school may or may not be directly helpful to you, but that’s not really why you went to school anyway. I’m sure Bill Gates doesn’t regret changing his mind about becoming a lawyer, and some things he learned in school no doubt helped him with Microsoft.

Some commonly given advice is “do what you love,” but that’s awfully naive. You can’t just pick something you love and assume that it will become a viable career. I don’t think there’s much market demand for people who just want to smoke pot and play Nintendo in their parent’s basement. Nor would that ultimately result in a fulfilling life, even if it seems appealing as a teenager. This is pretty obvious, which may be the reason people largely ignore this advice.

Many people fear change. You’ve gotten good at what you do, and if you switch to something else, then you’ll have to take a step backwards. Well, maybe. But continuing to take steps forward won’t help you if you’re walking off the end of a plank. If you know you’re heading in the wrong direction, it’s best to correct course now so you can move full speed ahead to where you want to go, instead of drifting heedlessly towards an iceberg. Even if you pick the path that’s right for you at the time, the world is going to change, and that will present new challenges and opportunities that make you want to change things. (Case in point, my school didn’t offer a blogging major.)

To get started on finding your calling, you’ll want to do a little introspection. Here are three resources to help you look inside yourself and figure out what you’re supposed to do with your life:

• What Color Is Your Parachute? 2008: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers. There’s a reason this is the #1 best-selling career book of all time. But don’t just read it; do the exercises too.
• Steve Pavlina’s “The Meaning of Life: Discover Your Purpose.” Your life purpose (who to be) is much broader than your calling (what to do), but this is still related, and definitely useful.
• Brian Kim’s “How to Find What You Love to Do.” Step by step advice on how to find what you love to do. Pay attention when he says to write it down!

Next time, I’ll write about an alternative way to find your calling that does not involve introspection.

Photo by telefrancais

Very often, people set out to do something, and then give up because it turns out to be too hard. They find they have to put in much more effort than they expected, they receive undeserved harsh treatment from others, they see results that are far from satisfactory, and they conclude that they just don’t have what it takes.

That’s not true. Meeting with tremendous amounts of resistance is perfectly normal. It’s supposed to be way too hard. It’s the world’s way of filtering out people who don’t want it bad enough. So don’t think you’re doing something wrong. You just need to develop your mental toughness.

There’s a great scene in the movie “Rocky Balboa” where Rocky’s son is complaining about living in his Dad’s shadow and having a hard time getting something for himself. After the usual sentimental parenting talk, Rocky lays out the bitter truth:

“Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place, and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now if you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain’t you! You’re better than that!”

People would do well to take this advice to heart. A few months ago, someone filled out a form on another one of my websites to request some help for the business he was struggling in. He said that he was having a hard time because his prospects were too skeptical to provide their contact information. Ironically, he provided a fake number and only his first initial (even though his full name was in his email address). In the email I sent him, I said “excuse me for saying so, but aren’t you doing the same thing?” My point was simply that you have to give a little to get a little, but he took it too hard.

The appropriate reaction on his part would have been to say “You know what? I’m guilty of doing the very thing I’m complaining about other people doing! I need to keep in mind that if I’m inherently distrustful, that will come across to others and affect how they act towards me.” A less helpful but still understandable reaction would have been to justify his actions by saying “Well, I didn’t know who you were, and I thought you might put me on some kind of list.”

But instead, he said “Because you insulted me, I’ll go with someone else. Don’t bother replying because I added you to my spam filter.” Now think about that. Because he couldn’t handle hearing something that wasn’t 100% what he wanted to hear, he decided to flush his business down the toilet. He can’t “go with someone else” because no other company does what he needs, and I’m sure he’s still having the problems he was seeking help for.

If you want to be successful in anything, you can’t get derailed by every minor imperfection in the world. If you get all bent out of shape every time a bunny is too soft or a rainbow is too bendy, you’re never going to get anywhere.

But learning not to be bothered by trivial matters just gets you caught up to normal. You have to go way, way beyond that and develop an extraordinary, almost superhuman level of mental toughness. When customers are unbelievably rude to you for no reason, when you make a mistake that causes a major setback, when people who are close to you tell you that you have no chance, you have to just shake it off and keep going.

I’m not going to pretend that this is even remotely easy. I haven’t mastered this skill myself, even though I’ve been working on it for years. It definitely takes practice, but the best way to get started is simply to realize that everything has a price, and decide that what you want is worth the price.

Developing mental toughness is, well, tough…but what’s the alternative? Quitting before you even get started? Letting unfortunate events ruin your attitude and thereby invite more of the same? Remember that at one point you decided that the life you wanted was worth fighting for. You don’t give up on your dreams just because achieving them turns out to be harder than you think it should be. You can have what you want, be you gotta be willing to take the hits. Develop your mental toughness.

Image from Rocky Balboa (2006)

In one scene from the movie “Rocky Balboa,” Rocky, who’s now a couple of decades past his prime, is listening to his trainer Duke talking about his strategy for his upcoming fight against the world heavyweight champion. Duke says to him:

“To beat this guy, you need speed. You don’t have it. And your knees can’t take the pounding, so hard running is out. And you got arthritis in your neck, and you’ve got calcium deposits on most of your joints, so sparring is out.

So, what we’ll be calling on is good ol’ fashioned blunt force trauma. Horsepower. Heavy-duty, cast-iron, pile driving punches that will have to hurt so much they’ll rattle his ancestors. Every time you hit him with a shot, it’s gotta feel like he tried kissing the express train. Yeah! Let’s start building some hurtin’ bombs!”

I think there are at least a couple of lessons here. One lesson is that even when things change, and what used to work no longer does, that doesn’t mean there’s not another way. You just need to figure out how to adapt.

But the lesson that I want to talk about now is the importance of building some hurtin’ bombs. So what does this mean anyway?

Simply put, if you’re going up against a formidable opponent, and the smart money says you have no chance, you can’t win by putting up a ho-hum effort. You’ve got to tip the odds in your favor by taking those thunderous shots that show the world you mean business. You don’t beat the 1980 Russian Olympic hockey team by playing conservatively, you don’t defeat the Nazis without D-Day, and you don’t defeat Sauron without throwing the One Ring into the Cracks of Doom.

Let’s look at some more practical examples. In writing this blog, I know I have lots of stiff competition in the personal development arena, and I’m not going to get noticed by only writing posts that are merely “fair” or “good.” Now realistically, such posts will have to be my bread and butter, but I’d rather write one post that really strikes a nerve with my readers and has the potential to be considered lifechanging, than write ten posts that are fine but really not that special in the grand scheme of things.

Depending on your situation, a hurtin’ bomb could be many different things. It could be your decision to change your career field. It could be the first steps of starting a new business. It could be learning a new skill that you can leverage to your advantage. It could be having a breakthrough session in marriage counseling. It could be deciding to make a particular investment. Whatever it is, the point is that to get out of a rut and make significant changes in your life, you can’t be blasé about it. You have to have the courage to dig deep and take those thunderous shots that mean the difference between winning and losing.

Don’t just jab your way through a mediocre life. Go for the knockout by throwing some hurtin’ bombs.