Identifying Your Desires: Keys to a Fulfilling Work-Life
A vital area that’s often ignored when choosing our work (or other important facet of life) is how it aligns with our deep-seated desires for our lives. Refusing to listen to these puts a person at risk for living our lives blindly stumbling through jobs, relationships, and life situations without attaining any of the things we truly want.
Somewhere in my thirties I “discovered” that I believed that I could work hard and do my best but ultimately had no control over the outcomes of my life. In this year of Covid-19, I find that many of my friends and clients are struggling with similar ideas.
The belief was rooted deep within me and strongly tied to my childhood family and church experiences that taught me, “God has done the work of saving you, now go out and prove you deserve it”. By my mid-twenties trying to live to earn people’s (and God’s) approval had left me exhausted, frustrated and hopeless. “Good” events and outcomes in my life were pleasant, unexpected surprises because I had no ultimate control or choice in the direction of my life. So, I put my head down, worked hard and lived in pessimistic expectancy of nothing.
I had also learned (been taught?) that my desires were entirely suspect. Because I believed I was inherently evil, I looked for some self-serving motive in every longing that emerged from my heart. In reaction, I lived to get my work done well and suspiciously examined or entirely dismissed any work-life desire that emerged from my heart.
The whole thing came to a head when I was in my second consecutive job with a boss who provided no leadership and no explicit expectations to guide my efforts or to help me know if I was on track and doing a good job. Without specific criteria for “work done well” I became extremely stressed.
Early one Saturday morning my loving wife noticed my stress and offered to give me that afternoon as time “free to spend as you like, without home and family responsibilities”. After making the offer she went away, then returned 45 minutes later and asked, “So, have you decided what you want to do?” In frustration and rage I punched the wall in the storage room where I was working. “I don’t know what I want”, I shouted, “I know what NEEDS to be done and what I SHOULD do, but I don’t know what I WANT!”
It was the beginning of a significant change in my thinking and approach to life and work.
Each of us has heart-driven desires that point toward the life we were created to live, and that say something about the meaning and significance our life is supposed to have. Some of us pursue these with abandon, without thought of whether they are authentic to us or just an attempt to ease our inner conflicts, whether they might be God-given or self-driven. Others dream but never dare to move toward those desires because their understanding of work or responsibility can’t accommodate them. And some lose track of the desires that once lived within them but were slowly (or dramatically) choked back by life’s trials until they are only distant memories.
It’s impossible to over-stress how essential desire is in order to have a fulfilling work-life.
If we can get beneath our desires to the essential motivations that drive them, then we often discover what we most long for. My clients who tell me they want Deep Friendships or Mature Love (two of the choices on my Life Priorities exercise) are recognizing their need for connected intimacy and belonging. Friends who speak of An Exciting Life (another choice on the exercise) often long for opportunities to test themselves and their capabilities and find their limits. Every desire we feel points to a deeper, more substantial part of who we are and why we are here.
Desire is also essential for growth, forward movement, and connection with a deeper sense of the calling of our lives. It is not enough to become aware of our natural strengths and competencies – of what we can do – we must also have some idea of where we are to best apply these. Without a clear understanding of goals to move toward or points on the horizon, then our lives are essentially adrift and without purpose. Calling doesn’t have to be perfectly discerned, defined or understood to guide us; it simply needs the loose definition desire often offers for it to be something we can use to set our course in life.
The truth is that we are always moving in one of two directions in our lives – forward or backward, toward growth or death – there is no status quo. Awareness of our work-life desires helps ensure, but doesn’t guarantee, that we have things to grow toward or into and don’t become victims of a slow backward slide in our development. It also helps ensure we push ourselves to become more or better, rather than the false pursuit of simply attaining more. The challenge for many is to regain their awareness of their authentic work-life desires.
How do you regain or identify your desires?
As I noted above, a first hint at our inner desires can often be found in the things we set as our life priorities. The trick is not to view theses things as desires themselves, but rather as illustrations of deeper longings or the themes of our desires. The themes I most often hear from my friends include making an impact or difference, expanding what I know or experience, real connection or intimacy, a sense of security, stretching or expanding my limits, wholeness or inner peace. These, and things like them, are often the artesian springs that feed our outward wants.
The second tip I often recommend is something I call Informed Trial and Error. Informed trial and error is a process where we refine our understanding of inner desires by exploring or trying on experiences that we believe are closer to those root desires. This isn’t the same as the rampant experimentation I watch many of my college friends go through when first experiencing the freedom of living without parents but, rather, thoughtfully moving toward what we understand of our desires.
The greatest challenge when taking this route is to thoughtfully take action steps to evaluate what things and activities get us closer to fulfilling our desires. Yearnings for adventure, excitement or new experiences can be tested in many ways, but they can also mask a need to self-distract from inner pains and uncomfortable thoughts. You can inadvertently become an adrenaline junky (or addict of another kind) and never truly identify or address the longings of your heart.
The last tip I offer for identifying or regaining a sense of your desires may seem ironic given what I shared at the beginning of this article. Pray about it. Ask God (or your version of a higher power) to reveal your true inner desires to you. If you’re indifferent or doubtful about the existence of such a being then consider Pascal’s wager: If you ask God to reveal these things and God really exists and reveals them, then you will have gained invaluable insights that can guide your life; And, if you ask God to reveal these things and God doesn’t exist, then you will probably gain valuable insights by virtue of having spent time conscientiously considering them.
The change in my own thinking about the nature of desire came when I stumbled on some bible verses that countered what I’d been taught about desires. The bible tells us that it’s God who gives us desires and abilities to do good things. (Phillipians 2:13) Once I had embraced the notion that some of my desires were actually driven by good and authentic motivations, rather than mistrusting them I began looking for content in my desires that felt whole and real. It became easier to distinguish which desires were accurate guides for my life path and which were self-guided attempts to control the uncertainty of my life.
Awareness of the deep-seated desires you have for your life is essential to attain the satisfying work-life we all want. Once aware, you can make intelligent and informed choices, and take action steps toward the things that truly fit you, but ignoring or refusing to listen to them puts a person at risk for a futile and frustrating work-life.
If you’d like to talk some more about identifying your work and/or life desires, then I’m completely committed to have a conversation with you. Just click here and fill in the page, and I’ll quickly get back to you to set it up.